


Fantasio

by Bonemarroww



Category: Logan Lucky (2017)
Genre: Excessive use of semi-colons, F/M, Fake Dating, Featuring Clyde Logan's curse, Odd Friendships, Self-indulgent secondary plot, Slight Platonic Meredith/Sarah, Slow Burn, Undercover investigation, but only on one side
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-29
Updated: 2019-05-15
Packaged: 2019-08-09 12:07:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 27,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16449650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bonemarroww/pseuds/Bonemarroww
Summary: Meredith knew crashing on FBI agent Sarah Grayson’s couch after losing her job was a bad idea. What she didn’t expect, however, was being sent to West Virginia with order to seduce the number one suspect of this heist investigation her housemate was denied.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Chap 1 is a bit of a prologue, more Clyde to come.

“If you woke me up for your Logan investigation bullshit, I’m going back to bed.”

Sitting in front of her first coffee of the day, Meredith was frowning. Her hair was still dishevelled from having only just woken up, and her eyes were still full of sleep. In front of her, holding herself very upright, and very much awake, was a tall woman, her hair tied in a strict bun. If it wasn’t for the woman’s eternal ‘I know better and you know I do’ look, Meredith might have tried to go back to sleep as soon as she felt the hand shaking her awake.

How her childhood neighbour / housemate could look so put together at such an ungodly hour in the morning was a constant wonder.

“I need your help for the heist case.” 

“You’ve got to be kidding me…”

The glare her roommate gave her was enough for Meredith to lower her gaze to her coffee. Maybe it was due to her job as in the FBI, or her cranky personality, or a skilled mix of these two facts, but special agent Sarah Grayson had, over the years, mastered the ‘You are guilty’ stare and didn’t hesitate to use it.

“Care to remind me for how many months you’ve been crashing on my couch?”

Meredith passed a hand through her hair and sighed. It wasn’t fair how often Sarah was right. Her host knew it, of course.

It had all started earlier this year. Meredith worked as a financial analyst at the time; in this big company she had done her internship in when she was in college. Contrary to popular belief, she didn’t actually hate her job, like so many people who spend their day in an office, in front of a computer. She had always liked her numbers.

“Three months, one week, five days… I may count the hours if you let me take a look at your watch.” She thought aloud, tilting her head and closing one eye in concentration, like she always did when she hadn’t drunk her third coffee yet.

“That’s right. Since you got fired.” Sarah cut impatiently. “It’s not that I want to be this kind of friend-“

The sleepy young woman snorted, before remembering that her _friend_ had the power to send her back to her father’s house, the tail between her legs. By chance, Sarah didn’t seem to hear.

“-but you owe me at least a try. These imbeciles told me off when I asked permission to continue the Logan investigation, but I just _know_ they have something to do with this heist! The only thing I need you to do is to befriend the younger brother, maybe go out with him a few weeks, and worm the confession out of him.”

Meredith stayed silent for a moment, grabbing her cup of coffee to take a long sip. Under the inquiring gaze of her housemate, she yawned, and nodded to herself.

“Seems I’m going back to bed after all.”

.

.

“ ‘I found a super contract for you, at this company near the target’.” Meredith mimicked her housemate’s voice. “ ‘You’ll live right next to Sylvester. Whitesville, house is a bit old but furnished, you’ll manage’. Bull-shit.”

On the road to West Virginia, her suitcases on the backseat, the analyst moped around in her car. Living in West Virginia for the next six months. What exactly could have been worse? Why did it have to be here? Why was it called West Virginia if it was so far east?

Beautiful state, she would give them that. She had always preferred spending holidays in the mountains rather than by the sea. But people there? Hillbillies. Damn, she had hated _Deliverances_. Stupid movie. Okay, it was later said it had been shot in Georgia. Still, there must have been a reason why so many people thought it was West Virginian!

“Damn, what have I done wrong to deserve this?” she sighed.

Sarah had been too caught up in her determination to investigate to look malicious when she announced that she had booked an accommodation for her.

“ ‘It’ll only be a matter of a few weeks. He’ll dump you in no time when he’ll see how messy his apartment becomes because of you’. What a fussy bitch.”

Sure thing, Sarah must have been glad to get rid of her. Meredith always was a chaotic person; the kind who filled the space, the kind who would spread their belongings everywhere if not forced to tidy things up. It had never bothered her, but she guessed it was a bit much for her ever house-proud host.

“Okay.” She sighed. “So, a bartender. At least I’ll get cheap beer. It’s the small things, Meredith. The small, important things. Beer’s a good start.”

As a matter of fact, it was.

.

.

By the time Meredith reached Whitesville, the moon was high in the sky, and she was positively exhausted. She had received a message from the owner of the house, saying the keys would be in the flowerpot near the entrance, which was without a doubt the worst hiding place Meredith could think of. The old cream paint was cracked on the frontage, and ivy had grown on an entire side of the accommodation, nearly covering the window.

“Fan-fucking-tastic.”

She had always lived in the city. So had her parents, and even grandparents. The only thought of having to go to the next town – _if not further_ – to find a mall was a painful reminder of the place she was in. Not that she was used to go shopping very often – _in fact, few things were lower on her to-do list_ –, but it was just one of these acquired things for anyone who had lived in the city for their entire life. That, and a cinema – _god, did they at least have a cinema?_

“Think positive.” Meredith muttered to herself. “You won’t have to see Miss Perfect every morning.”

As stupid as it was, this thought comforted her enough to dare enter the house.

The housework had been made recently, which relieved the analyst a great lot. She wouldn’t have to clean everything while settling. The room at her right was a living room, furnished with two couches, a coffee table, and a TV.

At her left, on the wall near the door, a paper displayed the basic things to know about the house: the electrical board to activate, the back up generator _-what kind of house needs a back up generator? -_ , the hot water tank…

Wi-Fi password. She was saved. Living in this god-forsaken place was one thing, but living without Internet was another.

Meredith nearly cried as she entered the code in her cell phone, having to start again three times before eventually managing to write all the letters and numbers in the good order. Notifications popped on her screen, but she was too tired and depressed even to read news or catch up on her YouTube subscriptions.

Too tired, and too hungry. Her stomach going into knots, and willing to get it over with as quickly as possible, she had skipped lunch to stay on the highway.

Poor decision, she figured, considering the closets in the kitchen were empty of any trace of food.

What was she expecting?

“Looks like I’m going straight to bed.” She sighed to herself.

To be honest, Meredith didn’t even dare take a look at the bathroom. She’d shower in the morning, when she’d be too tired and starved be picky. Until then, she still had to get her suitcases in her room _-god; she hadn’t checked the room -_ and sleep off her bad mood.

Getting out to grab her suitcases, the young woman shivered. It wasn’t particularly cold –the leaves on the trees had barely started to take a reddish colour–, but this overwhelming feeling of bringing her belongings in a house that would be hers for the next few months – _or rather the next eternity_ … It just frightened her so much.

She was feeling 22 again, when she had settled in her first apartment in the Big Apple; all alone in a wide, busy world.

More like wide and empty, at the moment.

The bedroom was apparently up the stairs, as well as the bathroom. Before bothering with taking the suitcases there, she went alone to take a look at the room. The sight of the sheets neatly folded on the mattress, just waiting for her to put them on the bed, was the final nail on her courage’s coffin.

She walked down the stairs, sat on top of one of her suitcases, and wept for the best part of the next half-hour. It just felt good to pour out all of her frustration.

When she got up, she heard a noise coming from her stuff, the kind that sounded just like plastic being crushed and then released.

Opening the zipper, she discovered, among her clothes and books, two packs of cookies she couldn’t remember putting in her suitcase. Between them was folded a piece of blue-tinted paper, the same one her housemate / childhood neighbour loved so much.

_In case grocery shops are closed on Sundays. Good luck, you’ll need it._

Meredith all but threw herself on the poor cookies, stopping to eat only to send a quick text to Sarah.

_Go fuck yourself.  
PS: Thanks for the cookies._

And, as she stuffed her mouth with another treat before lying on the couch with a blanket, she figured that, maybe, she didn’t hate her _friend_ so much.


	2. Chapter 2

For her first week in West Virginia – _happily crossed off the calendar as soon as Friday night came–_ , Meredith mostly stayed at home. First, because she desperately needed to put her shit together around this new house – _she couldn’t remember the last time she had a house to herself_. After the third day, she had quickly realised that the laws of the dust still applied there whether she was prostrated in her bedroom or not; and after the fourth, that dust bunnies were called that for a reason. God, she had never seen a place make itself dusty as quickly.

Her second reason for staying at home was that, for the first time in three months, two weeks and four days, she actually had a job. At the very least, Sarah wasn’t joking when she said she had found a great work for her. Not that she would admit it to her, but Meredith had been quite afraid that the FBI agent might give her a secretary’s job. Instead, she was now back on her feet as an analyst, something she was secretly quite grateful for.

However, it meant long days, coming home and having to cook, clean and try to keep sane by closing the window shutters. If she didn’t see the grass of her garden or her neighbour’s trees, she could pretend she was still in the city. Her laptop was officially full of graphs and Excel tabs, and her employer would soon be able to note that he had never had such a hard working employee.

_“Working is coping”_ used to say her father when she was younger, always giving her more homework to do whenever something didn’t work out for her.

And after so much time just hanging around in Sarah’s apartment, Meredith realised maybe she had put his advice off for too long. She had missed her numbers; they came back now as instinctively as they used to when she had started her career.

Just walking around in her house made them rush back. Nine windows, seventeen steps to the second floor, forty-seven paces from her front door to her bed, five hundred eighty-three seconds until her pastas were cooked.

All in all, if Meredith tried not to think about anything related to her past life in the city, her “seduction mission”, her new colleagues who probably had their first beer at 11 a.m., or what her father would think if he knew she was stuck in Boone County, West Virginia… everything worked quite fine.

Meredith only met Clyde Logan at the end of her third - _long-_ week in Boone County. Now that she had more or less managed to come up with a _routine_ that allowed her to live in a correct, mostly-clean house without having to storm out for emergency errands, she didn’t really dare interrupt it to go to the bar. Not that she really wanted to go there anyway. Sarah had all but forced her to settle here, with the ridiculous mission to seduce an ex-convict, possibly guilty of so many charges she had forgotten how many years in prison he was risking. No thanks, she would sooner extend her contract to a year than willingly meet the guy –let alone try and seduce him.

However, it seemed fate had a different plan, seeing as bad luck came knocking at her door in various ways on the few weeks following her moving in; and Meredith quickly found herself in desperate need of something strong.

.

It was, then, only natural that she would be in such a terrible mood when she opened the door of the Duck Tape. At her first step inside, her mind was already going wild about how this wasn’t a name for a bar, how the place’s lighting was too yellow, how the tables looked old and dirty, and mostly, how it stank of alcohol.

Eyeing warily the nearest table, she quickly opted for the counter. Behind it, among the shelves of various alcohols, a screen was playing a rerun of the latest NASCAR race; too-coloured people in too-coloured cars trying not to crash on the first wall coming. What kind of sport was that? Meredith didn’t comment on it –to whom would she have talked anyway? NASCAR was some kind of religion around here, or so she had heard.

The second thing that caught her attention, behind the counter, was the man currently cleaning glasses, observing her discreetly.

And, god, did he catch her attention. The eight paces it took her to go and sit on what would now be her stool – _around the center of the bar, slightly on the left_ – were spent eyeing him closely. How his long dark hair – _she had always liked dark haired men_ – nearly fell on his shoulders, how his deep brown eyes shined with… was it prudence? Or curiosity? How his straight face was adorned with some facial hair –only a goatee. Good thing for her, she hated big beards ever since her father had opted for this look, after the divorce.

The bartender was wearing green shirt, which highlighted the broadness of his shoulders. When the analyst sat, he nodded to her and left the now-clean glass near the sink to come to her.

“What can I do for you, miss?” he simply asked, seemingly casually, but Meredith was an observer before all.

She didn’t miss the way he had tensed while walking towards her, and how he now stood with his left arm slightly behind him. However, with his intense gaze set on her, she didn’t dare to try and peek at it in such an obvious manner.

“I’ll have a whiskey, please.” She managed to smile at him despite her terrible mood.

The man before her nodded and turned his back on her to grab a bottle on a shelf. Meredith turned her head, hoping to catch a glance of what he seemed to be trying his best to hide. She wasn’t being intrusive; just curious. At least, that’s what she told herself as she managed to catch a glimpse of something black and sleek, before straightening quickly. If the bartender saw her peeking, he didn’t say anything.

“On the rocks?”

The new client shook her head, brows furrowed.

“As classy as it sounds, I prefer it’s natural taste.”

Meredith got a hum of appreciation in response, and she could swear she saw his lips tremble, as if he hesitated between commenting and smiling and ended up not doing any. Shoot. Maybe she should have smiled again; but she was currently too bitter to do it.

The burning of alcohol in her throat felt like a good cure to her misfortunes.

Too busy nursing her drink, her curiosity regarding the bartender’s secret long forgotten, Meredith barely saw him leaving the counter to tend to other patrons.

Five months, one week and two days until freedom.

Possibly five months, one week and two days until she crawled back to her father’s. She sure as hell would never crash on Sarah again; definitely too dangerous. Even facing her parent’s sarcasm and ‘Finally coming back?’ wouldn’t be as hard as risking another undercover mission.

To this new resolution, Meredith took her glass and downed the rest of her drink in one gulp. She then searched the bartender’s gaze, and when she found it, lifted her glass and mouthed, “Another please”.

Waiting for her new glass, she looked at the bar. The place was quite spacious, three round tables, seven booths, about twenty stools around the square counter. One pool table, and what seemed to be a table football. Sure thing, this place must be quite popular on the right nights. For a Friday night, it seemed a bit empty; but then again, she had come early.

Maybe she would find a pool partner. She used to play in college, with her friends, when they were waiting for their next class. She had such a great time in college; friends, flings, almost no responsibilities…

Speaking of responsibilities, did Sarah count on paying her bills, seeing as _she_ booked the house? Wouldn’t it only be fair?

Damn, she should’ve asked.

“So, you’re a whiskey kind of gal.”

The deep voice of the bartender startled Meredith, almost making her drink go down the wrong way. When she looked up, she could barely believe it was him who had just talked; busy drying the previously cleansed glasses, his eyes were focused on his task, with such an apparent concentration that Meredith only dared to answer when his eyes hesitantly looked up, a few seconds later.

“Well,” she started. What did Sarah tell her about learning info? Oh, yes, ask the same thing. “You too look like a whiskey kind of guy.”

At the sight of her conversation partner shrugging, she wondered if it was too personal. What had she done wrong again?

“True enough.” He simply stated. “Do you have a favourite?”

The analyst almost snorted at his curiosity.

“Port Charlotte, ten years of age, 61%. But only when it’s Christmas or my birthday.”

One of his eyebrows shot up, and he eyed her cautiously, before nodding towards what little remained in her glass.

“That’s quite far from a good old bourbon.” He commented before adverting his eyes once more.

What was this guy’s problem with eye contact? He did have nice eyes; the kind Meredith would gladly see more of.

Sensing the awkward moment coming, the analyst nervously shrugged and downed the rest of her drink, smiling just in time for him to see it before he focused on his task.

“I never said it was the best when I’m looking for a good antidepressant.”

The end of her sentence was, unintentionally, quite dripping with bitterness. He seemed to hear it – _obviously_ –, but Meredith was too busy looking at the last drop of whiskey rolling at the bottom of her glass to pay attention to the look he gave her.

“Hard day?”

To this, she did snort.

“Hard weeks. It’s not even the end of my first month here and I’ve already had enough. My neighbour wants me to have dinner with him, my employer is already speaking of extending my contract, and I’ve quite painfully discovered that I’m very allergic to wasp stings. Among other things, which may or may not include a wild boar and my host.”

The bartender – _it was about time she stopped pretending she didn’t know his name yet, Sarah had almost talked her ears off about the Logan case_ – stared at her in silence, before turning around and pushing another full glass of whiskey towards her.

“This one’s on the house. You look like you need it.” He dared a small smile, barely a corner of his lips rising upwards, tentatively, as if he wasn’t sure if her short tone was due to her misfortunes or if she just didn’t want to talk to him.

His offer and tiny smile did little to comfort Meredith, but seeing him apparently walk on eggshells to talk to her somehow softened her.

With a small smile of her own, she accepted the drink, bringing it to her lips. And just by this gesture, it seemed the man in front of her relaxed a little, his smile a bit less shy.

When the glass hit the counter, with less force than its sibling, she held her hand out for him to shake.

“My name’s Meredith. Meredith Pryce.”

Bad move. The man just stared at her left hand blankly for a few seconds before adverting his eyes again. It was only then the analyst noticed the black prosthetic covering his left forearm and hand.

Shit. For a person who’s always been proud of her sense of observation, this was a hard blow to her self-esteem. And the poor guy, he was probably embarrassed. Why was she so stupid? Sarah hadn’t considered the possibility of mission’s failure by Meredith being too awkward to actually seduce the man.

But then, something just happened. As she was already starting to withdraw her arm, muttering an apology about her being left-handed, the bartender took a long inspiration, gathering his courage, and grabbed her hand. His eyes lit by this unsure look, oddly mixed with some kind of determination, he looked straight at her and shook her trembling hand.

“Clyde Logan.”

For some reason, the confident way his deep voice pronounced his name made her smile. This tone screamed ‘I know you noticed, deal with it’, and it was kind of sexy, for a two-words sentence.

Quite funny, how a few drinks tended to change her usual jaded-pragmatic personality to this… happy-horny drunk being.

Their handshake was quick enough, and soon after, Clyde ran away to take care of other patrons, leaving Meredith quite puzzled. Had she ruined things? Or, at the contrary, did his confusing look just mean he simply preferred to get that out of the way once and for all?

By the time he came back remotely close to her, her third whiskey was almost finished, and the young woman was busy watching what was left of it, as if staring at it would make it refill. Not that she really needed one. She had had plenty of alcohol –if the way she felt the world slightly spin every time she turned her head was anything to go by.

“So, you’re new to Sylvester?”

To be honest, Meredith was quite surprised he engaged in a new conversation after their awkward moment a few minutes before. Surprised, but pleasantly so.

“Actually, I moved in Whitestown, a few miles from here. But yes, I’m new to…” she almost said ‘the countryside’. “… this state, in general.”

At this, the younger Logan brother raised an eyebrow, eyes focused on the drink he was mixing, something colourful, with several juices. Probably for a lady.

“You came all the way from Whitestown for a drink? I didn’t know ma bar was so popular.”

The straight face the bartender was wearing was confusing enough for Meredith to almost miss the joke, but she eventually smiled and let out a small laugh. Perhaps it was the light in his gaze, as he looked at her out of the corner of his eyes, or the slight tremble of his lips, but at this very moment, Clyde looked positively glowing with pride at having made her laugh.

“Well, I would prefer if my new colleagues and neighbours didn’t think I’m an alcoholic.” Meredith chuckled. “I have yet to decide if I get comatose or just shitfaced.” She added, half joking.

The following silence made her look at Clyde, surprised he hadn’t answered. He looked thoughtful, his gaze lost in the group of young college dudes who had just arrived.

“I hope you’re not driving, then.”

Her glass still touching her lips and the taste of alcohol still pretty fresh on her tongue, the analyst froze. In her bad mood, she hadn’t thought about how to go back to her house. With a sigh, her glass hit the counter with more force than necessary.

How would she go back to her house? Meredith had already drunk too much to drive, she hadn’t heard of any night buses going from Sylvester to her new town, she wasn’t sure there were many hostels in Sylvester… and she was sure as hell not going to ask Sarah to check on her laptop for her.

“Well” she began, suddenly tired of this and letting her hands go back to her glass, “I think I’ll just sleep in my car, if you let me stay on your parking. It would hardly be the first time.” She aimed for a light tone, but the weariness was clear in her voice.

So much for two -three- glasses of cheap whiskey…

At the very least, her drunken talk didn’t seem to bother Clyde. He simply muttered it would be okay to leave the car there. His tone screamed it probably wasn’t the wisest choice, but he at least had the decency not to argue.

Wasn’t like she had any other choice, was it?

.

.

Turns out, trying to rest in her car hadn’t gotten more comfortable since the last time she had tried. She didn’t dare look at her watch, afraid it would do nothing but confirm she still had a few hours to endure before sunrise. Meredith had left the bar around midnight, after talking a bit more to the bartender, who had kindly offered her some fries to eat so she would sober up more quickly –their efficiency apparently quite limited.

Maybe it was just her drunk brain imagining things, but she couldn’t imagine Clyde Logan doing some heist, or going to prison, that is.

He just seemed… gentle. Kind. A bit shy. Quite handsome. Not the typical ex-convict profile. When they talked before she paid for her drinks, she had learned he liked reading. He had even given her the directions to the nearest library and cinema –even though, to be honest, she couldn’t recall the way she was supposed to take.

However, Meredith wasn’t naïve either. What had Sarah told her before? Oh, yes, ‘Ted Bundy was a pretty cool guy when he wasn’t killing people’. And, truth be told, after years of talking regularly to her FBI-agent-former-housemate, she had indeed heard several times of such twisted people.

How was she supposed to sleep with these thoughts dancing in her head?

“Very smart, miss Pryce.” She mumbled while turning around on her backseat, trying to find a position that would allow her to rest.

Useless.

After what could have been a few minutes or a few seconds, for all she knew, a loud thud against her window startled her, making jump so high she hit her head on the roof. Her eyes blinded by what seemed to be the light of a cell phone, she squinted her eyes to recognize the face of Clyde Logan, just outside her car’s door.

What did he want from her? Had she locked the door?

As her eyes started to tear from the harsh white light, Meredith breathed to tame the instinctive fear of being alone in the wilderness, with such a tall man just outside her door. Holding her hand up to hide the light, she opened the window just enough to be able to talk to the bartender.

“Could you please turn off the light?”

Seeming to only now notice how the analyst was almost crying from it, Clyde apologised while adverting the cell phone; and if it weren’t so dark outside, maybe the young woman would have noticed the slight blush on his cheeks.

“What do you want?” she rubbed her sleeve against her eyes.

For a second, the bartender looked as lost as if he didn’t know himself why he was at her car; but after mumbling a few words, he spoke up.

“I just closed the bar, it’s around 2 am. I… I figured I wouldn’t be able to sleep well knowing you’re all alone on a parking lot. I just wanted to offer driving you home?”

It was Meredith’s turn to feel lost. Did this man just suggest…?

“What?” was the only thing she managed to croak.

Her eyes adjusting to the darkness, she saw him running his hand through his hair, looking less and less at ease.

“Do you want me to drive you back to Whitestown?” he repeated.

Meredith blinked and closed the window, before unlocking manually the car door and stepping out. Her muscles protested, and with her head still spinning a bit from all the whiskey she had downed, she almost fell while getting out of the car; or rather, she would’ve had Clyde not managed to catch her under the elbows when he sensed she wasn’t stable.

“I’d like that, thanks.” Meredith shyly smiled as she stumbled on her feet.

She tried not to think about how much climbing in the car of a man she had barely met a few hours ago was a bad idea; and how her mother would have a heart attack if she knew what her irresponsible daughter was doing.

“S’nothing.” the bartender muttered as he led her to his truck.

Maybe it was the alcohol that had finally gotten to her head, or the poor light, or her tiredness. Perhaps a bit of all of these facts… In any case, as he started the engine and left the parking, his prosthetic hand by his side and his eyes focused on the road, Meredith felt a chuckle escape her lips. Feeling slightly dizzy, she offered him a smile.

“You’re pretty.” she simply stated when he glanced her way.

Damn Sarah and her plans, it was true. Meredith liked the way his hair almost fell on his shoulders, which were just a bit too broad to her liking -one of the reasons why she was so surprised to be attracted to him. She had always had a thing for slim men -but something was different with him. Damn, admitting it to herself felt like giving reason to her former housemate.

Her smile widened when she saw the blush on his cheeks. It felt like a personal victory.

“I’m the one supposed to say that.” he answered with a low voice a few minutes later, as he was engaging in Whitestown’s main street. “Thanks?”

Meredith pointed to the street he was supposed to drive to. Damn, her neighbour’s lights were still turned on. There was no way he wouldn’t be curious about who dropped her off -and why she would need being driven back to Whitestown when she left with her own car… Wait.

Her car was still on Duck Tape’s parking lot. How would she get it back? There was no way she would walk all the way.

“Mh, Clyde?” she asked as he pulled in her driveway. “Do you know if there are any buses I could take to go to Sylvester tomorrow? Seeing as I left my car there.”

The younger Logan seemed to think for a minute.

“There’s probably the Tririver Transit, but I’m not sure when.”

The analyst instantly felt bad for complaining. He had made the effort to spare her a long, uncomfortable night, and had taken her home when he had no obligation at all to do it. She had no right to sigh or be irritated, if only with her own stupidity.

“You know what, it’s okay, I’ll manage. Thank you so much for…”

“I could take you there tomorrow afternoon.”

The end of her sentence died on her tongue before she could say it. Clyde Logan was either annoyed, or not bold enough to look at her in the eyes while offering to see her again. If, in any normal situation, Meredith would have hoped for the former option, a usually stern presence called Sarah Grayson was cheering for the latter from the back of her mind.

“You don’t have to, really, you’ve already done a lot for me tonight…” she adverted her eyes when he gave her a side-glance.

How come she was feeling like a teenager again, unable to meet the eyes of the guy who drove her back home? Damn, this looked a hell lot like how her first date had ended –minus her being drunk.

The poor soul hadn’t known whether he had to escort her back to the door or just kiss her goodbye in the car, and hadn’t really had the choice anyway. Meredith’s mother had come out on the doorstep to meet / yell at them, annoyed as hell that they were half an hour late.

So, well, considering Clyde Logan probably wasn’t wondering whether to kiss her or not, she dared to turn towards him –only to meet his eyes as he nodded quietly, raising his hand in sign of surrender.

Was it disappointment showing in his eyes? She couldn’t be sure, seeing as the only light shed on them was that of her annoyingly intrusive neighbour’s windows. However, and against her better judgement, she took an inspiration and faced what was both more practical and more Sarah Grayson-approved.

“But if it really wouldn’t bother you, I’m not against the idea of you showing me around the library you talked to me about earlier.”

This brought a small smile to his lips.

“Is 3pm fine for you? I can come earlier if you’ll need your car before that.”

“3pm is fine.” Meredith nodded. “Thanks, again.”

The look he gave her then, like he didn’t want to make it obvious that he was content with her changing her mind, was damn right precious.

“My pleasure.”

That night, Meredith didn’t count the stairs when she went up to bed, nor the seconds when she brushed her teeth, her mind too preoccupied by a certain dark-haired bartender, and the burning memory of whiskey in her throat.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry I don't update so often, but I'm working on so many things at the same time I can't focus haha !  
> Anyway, Clyde appears more in this chap ! The net is slowly but surely closing...

The next day, Meredith was woken by the sweet sound of her phone ringing furiously. At this hour, it could only be two persons: Sarah, or…

“Hey Merry!” an all-too joyful voice greeted her.

Swallowing a wave of nausea – _drinking so much may not have been her smartest move_ –, the analyst let her head fall back on the mattress.

“Erwin, what time is it?” she almost yawned. “Actually, don’t answer that.”

Her friend’s laugh never failed to make her smile, no matter how shitty she was feeling. She had met Erwin in high school, soon after her parent’s separation; an ever-happy guy with a booming laughter and nymphomaniac tendencies. As different as their personalities were, they had clicked, and had been best friends ever since.

“Well, I called you on behalf of your mother, to make sure you hadn’t forgotten about this very weekend I know you pretend to forget every year.”

“Traitor.” Meredith whispered. “Here I thought you sincerely cared about me.”

Poor Erwin had be the first – _and only_ – person she had called upon her very first day in West Virginia. The call had lasted for nearly an hour, and honestly, she had talked so much it wouldn’t surprise her if at some point her friend had just put the phone down and done something else instead of listening.

“Spare the rod and spoil the child. How’s West Virginia so far? Noticed any hottie?”

“Well, there’s this guy Sarah wants me to watch who’s eye candy, but that’s about it.” Meredith rolled her eyes.

Getting up, the analyst noticed she had slept in the same clothes she was wearing at the bar, but she was too lazy to change. That would have to wait until her second coffee.

“Good thing you have to watch him, then! Speaking of Sarah, how is she?”

A second passed, and then another, with the coffee machine being the only thing to break the silence. A pang of guilt shot through Meredith as she realised that, honestly, she had no idea how her former housemate was faring.

“As good as usual, I would bet, we haven’t really talked in a while. I gotta make my first report soon, so I guess I’ll meet her in a few days.”

At the short, heavy silence and discreet sigh that followed, Meredith knew something was coming.

“I have to leave you soon, but, please, don’t be too hard on her. I may be wrong, but I can’t help but think that she’s a bit at the end of her tether… Maybe it would be good for her to have this little investigation adventure with a friend.”

Too many thoughts went through the analyst’s head to answer this statement. How Sarah had always seemed at the end of her tether. How the agent deserved her silence, considering what she had forced her to do. How she didn’t dare to admit she was worried too, sometimes.

“We’re not friends.” was the only thing she managed to say.

And, damn, could she feel the disappointment radiating from her phone.

“Keep telling yourself that. Anyway, don’t forget about this weekend or your mother’s gonna have my skin on top of yours. I’ll see you around! And kiss that bartender for me.”

 

The precedent night, Meredith had made sure to leave her front door locked.

Not that she feared any intruder, but the nagging feeling that, should something happen, she couldn’t get out in her car, left her incredibly antsy. Curtains closed and deprived of any natural light, she sulked in her own anxiousness all morning.

It didn’t help that she had received three emails from her father about current economic situations –new taxes she might need to take into account from now on– and one about generation Y being the most ungrateful children towards their parents.

Sorry, Dad. Not having this conversation today.

To be honest, the young woman desperately needed something to do, if only to pacify her.

Thinking back to her discussion with Erwin and feeling guilty on top of being bored, Meredith finally sat and dialled this one number she was always so reluctant to call.

“Hey, Sarah!” her voice went a bit too high. “How are you? Miss me already?”

Honestly, she should have expected the silence on the other side of the line; this kind of silence that felt an awful lot like a raised eyebrow.

“Hi, Meredith. I was wondering when I’d hear from you. How’s the investigation going?”

Her lack of answer strangely stung.

Erwin be damned, if Meredith was a bad friend, then so was Sarah freaking Grayson.

“Met the guy yesterday. I’ll spare you the details, but, he’s supposed to pick me up this afternoon to show me around.”

“Let me guess…” her former housemate interrupted in a semi-amused tone “You got drunk, couldn’t drive, managed to look just pitiful enough for him to drive you home… And you don’t have your car.”

A convenient fit of cough prevented the analyst from answering. Damn, Sarah did have a sixth sense. Maybe Clyde _was_ guilty after all.

“Anyway, I wouldn’t say we’re starting off on the right foot… I think he’s more annoyed at me than anything.” Meredith pensively added, thinking back to their lack of eye contact and the silence in the car.

Surely the FBI agent would turn off her pragmatism for a second and empathise with the bartender, since she herself couldn’t stand the analyst.

“Doesn’t really matter. As far as I got to know before the case was closed, he hasn’t had more than a few dates since he was 22. You’re intelligent and pretty. Should you ask, your chances are high enough.”

Her childhood neighbour’s lack of emotions was beginning to seriously piss Meredith off. Sarah had never been a great romantic –nor had Meredith–, but this was a bit much to hear her disregard any possible feelings in the choice of a date.

It reminded her of the time when they were still in high school, and when the “Grayson brat”, as she would secretly call her neighbour, used to email her a list of all the reasons why she shouldn’t date this or this guy. The opposite of a matchmaker; it was kind of surprising to now see her throw her friend in the arms of an ex-convict.

“People don’t work like this.” She frowned.

“Desperate men do. I have to hang up. Good luck.”

Meredith mumbled a goodbye, and waited for the characteristic neural silence that always came when her childhood neighbour hung up on her, but this time, something seemed to keep her for a moment longer.

“I’m fine, by the way.”

And then silence.

For whatever reason, the analyst’s sigh turned into a smile, as she was shaking her head.

 

When a now familiar pick up pulled in her driveway, later on that day, Meredith didn’t waste a second before she unlocked the door, not leaving the bartender a single chance to knock, as she almost ran to the vehicle.

“Are you okay?” Clyde asked as the young woman opened the car door and sat next to him, offering him a tensed smile as she buckled her belt.

The analyst nodded breathlessly, trying to calm her nerves when she noticed the confused and admittedly worried look on his face.

No, she was not fucking okay. She had been feeling like a caged lion all day, had eaten pot noodles because she hadn’t bothered with grocery shopping in a few days and was supposed to do it today, and had even resorted to face-skype her father; that’s how desperate she had been to kill hours before finally being able to go and retrieve her car.

“Yes, yes, I was just, hm, excited to go to this library you told me about. I love reading.” She lied.

The last book she had opened of her own free will and actually finished that didn’t have anything to do with her field of work might have been a novel Erwin had lent her the year before. Others were mostly sitting unfinished on her shelves, quietly collecting dust.

Anyway, her answer earned her a small smile as the man started up the engine and left her garden.

“I like it too.”

Shit.

That’s what you get for lying.

“Anyway, we’re going to Seth, just a bit north of here. The nearest library is actually in Garrison, but it’s really small. The best would be to go to Charleston, but it’s almost an hour by car, so, well, Seth is nearer.”

The analyst nodded. Garrison was where she went grocery shopping the past times. It was small, but at least there was a town-sized Trader Joe’s, which was a strict minimum in matters of alimentation as far as Meredith was concerned. She hadn’t dared yet to shop at the weekly market. Too soon.

“Seth seems fine.” Meredith agreed, even though she had no idea whether it was ten or forty minutes away. She only had a vague memory of having read this name on her GPS when she had first crossed the state to settle in Whitestown.

For most of the trip to Seth, Meredith looked out the window, as they drove along the Big Coal River. The day was rather bright, the woman noticed, as the sun was high in the sky, and bathed the scenery in a pretty light she hadn’t bothered to notice until now. Beside her, Clyde was driving with a hint of a smile on his lips, an old country song playing on the radio. As they passed an old water mill below them, right next to the board indicating they were coming to Sylvester, her official driver seemed to notice her interest for the sight, as he slowed down a bit.

“My brother and I used to play there, when we were younger. The mill hasn’t been used for years, so it was some kind of a general quarters for us, whenever we were planning on some kind of mischief.”

For some reason, the thought of a younger Clyde running around pulling pranks and getting caught –mostly getting caught, she imagined, if he were already this big– amused her incredibly. She personally hadn’t had a very turbulent childhood. No siblings, daughter of some big company dude… She had always been the kind of girl to give her homework back on time, to learn her lessons and be bored quietly at dinner. Not a lot of fun, overall. Her teenage angst and want of adventure had always been sternly monitored by Sarah, and only when she had met her best friend Erwin had she loosened up a little and done some student stuff.

But even as quiet and nice as he appeared now, she could definitely picture her new companion being up to some fishy plans as a teen.

“Really? Clyde Logan making mischief?” she teased with a laugh in her voice.

His big brown eyes gleamed with amusement, as he drove through Sylvester.

“To be honest, I mostly followed Jimmy, my older brother. He was always the one with the worst ideas, but, I don’t know, it seemed fun at the time.”

As they left Sylvester, speeding up a bit, Meredith caught sight of a few trailers in the distance, just near the city. A few kids were playing soccer in a park nearby, a young girl cheering them in her pink dress.

“Sometimes I wish I had more fun as a kid.” The woman sighed as the truck passed the children. “I had my first party at eighteen. I had never drunk any alcohol. I let you imagine how the party ended for me.”

A low chuckle to her left forced a small smile out of her.

“Probably not your proudest moment.” Clyde empathized.

Meredith pretended not to be extremely conscious of the way his eyes squinted a bit when he laughed quietly. It gave his deep brown eyes a softer look, like a puppy. A very, very tall puppy.

The rest of the way to Seth was mostly spent in a relatively comfortable silence. The analyst made a mental list of books she could say she had rather liked as a teen, if Clyde was to ask examples of stuff she read. Truth is, she did read regularly; but it would be very hard not to appear very boring if she admitted to reading economic history books as a pastime. Her mission was to entice. She didn’t know of anyone who had successfully seduced their partners by quoting Marx to them. Somehow, she figured it wasn’t worth a try.

 

Seth’s library was actually of a decent size. The librarian, a young man with a fancy moustache, seemed to recognize Clyde, as he grinned and waved at them when they entered. The bartender nodded, and Meredith smiled briefly in turn, before considering the shelves with a mix of curiosity and pessimism. There was no way she could convince an accomplished reader that she liked any genre she had barely ever read before. Sticking as close to the truth as possible still seemed to be the smartest move she could make.

Clyde had soon disappeared in the recent novels section; so with a repressed sigh, Meredith made her way to the historical fiction section. Without much surprise, she found a few Zola novels, some true stories from World War II, as well as British historical romance classics.

Out of habit, she checked no one was looking her way, before reaching over to grab a copy of Pride and Prejudice. Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy had become her guilty pleasure in matters of books, ever since Erwin had lent her his copy in college. It was so unlike her to be romantic that Sarah had down right thought the analyst was bullshitting her when she had found Meredith reading it on her couch. She couldn’t recall the last time the agent had laughed so hard; hence why Meredith was now wary of letting anyone see her read it. Nevertheless, seeing Sarah laugh like this was rare, and the memory she kept of this evening remained somehow precious in that regard.

With a smirk, the analyst pulled her phone from her pocket, and snapped a picture of the cover to send it to Sarah.

_Shall I be Jane or Lizzy? Clyde doesn’t seem like the Lydia type…_

After a few minutes spent waiting in vain for an answer Meredith shrugged and figured her non-friend would answer later.

“It’s a good book, if you’re hesitant to borrow it.” A deep voice startled her.

Turning to her right, she discovered a rather sheepish Clyde. Maybe she wasn’t the only one timid about her literary preferences.

“It’s one of my favourites, actually.” She simply answered, holding it close to her chest. “I think I’ll take it.”

Clyde stuck the book he was holding under his left elbow before rummaging through the shelf with his good hand, and finally pulling another novel out of it. The cover was a soft lilac, adorned with what looked like the painting of an aqueduct.

“If you liked it you’ll probably enjoy this one too. Same kind of story, but during the industrial revolution.”

_This sounds like what I didn’t know I was looking for._

The younger woman excitedly took it from him, barely paying attention to the title – _North and South_ , she read quickly– before skimming through the back cover. It _did_ smelled like a Pride and Prejudice cheaper look-alike, but it would do. Plus, it was taking place in one of her favourite periods. What could go wrong?

“Looks fine. Thank you, Clyde.” She smiled at him.

His humble expression was hiding something. The analyst squinted her eyes, before a smirk found its way to her lips.

“You wouldn’t happen to be a big romantic, would you, Clyde Logan?” she couldn’t help but tease.

A furious blush coloured the bartender’s cheeks.

“I knew it.” She falsely whispered with a shit-eating grin.

 

When Meredith was done registering at the library and borrowing her books, Clyde regretfully admitted he would have to open the bar an hour from then, which meant he would need to clean a bit before that. He would have loved to maybe invite her to a coffee shop nearby and talk about their latest readings, though he knew he was surely getting a bit ahead of himself. New faces were rare in the county; especially those who were settling in. As a man who knew, one way or another, most people in the locality, he was curious. Plus, if he could help her out… Clyde had always been an obliging person –mostly to his brother, he would admit. He liked feeling useful. And ever since his rather catastrophic return from Iraq… Usefulness wasn’t his norm in matter of feelings about himself.

It didn’t hurt that the woman seemed nice enough, and didn’t look too intimidated by his arm. He already knew she enjoyed reading; maybe they could be friends?

“I meant to ask you yesterday, but, what is a city girl like yourself doing in here?” he asked, as he was nearing Sylvester again.

For about a second, Clyde saw a flash of panic appear in the eyes of his new acquaintance, before she masked it with an awkward smile and adverted her eyes. Maybe this was private. He shouldn’t have asked. It wasn’t his business. Clyde didn’t want her to be driven away by his curiosity.

“You don’t have to answer, I mean, ‘m just asking.” He mumbled, his eyes focused on the road again, as he tried not to be intrusive.

Meredith seemed to think for a minute, before she shrugged tensely and answered.

“It’s okay. I just… Tried to fraud at some paperwork to be transferred to the home office. The administration caught me. It was either accepting this position for six months or being fired. I’m already lucky they didn’t take this to the judge, I guess!” Meredith awkwardly chuckled.

This seemed to amuse Clyde, as he parked in front of the Duck Tape. The late afternoon light was bathing the bar in a bright light. The leaves in the few trees had started to take a yellow hue. Sooner than later, they would fall. Meredith couldn’t wait for the winter to come. The cold and the snow were her favourite weather for sulking in her house, and sulking in her house was currently her favourite thing to do.

“I wouldn’t have pegged you as the fraudster type.” The bartender couldn’t help but tease a little.

The chuckle in his voice made her cheeks slightly flush. She had never been a good liar, but her companion’s apparent good nature didn’t seem to note it.

“I’ve never been a good fraudster, I’m afraid.” She shook her head, willing her uneasiness to pass.

Silence fell on them and Meredith was overcome by a strong sense of _déjà vu_. None of them dared to open the car door to get out of the truck before a goodbye none of them knew how to express.

The perspective of parting with the young woman without knowing if he would see her soon was quite unsettling for Clyde. After spending a few hours in her company, and even though he only knew her from the day before, it would feel awkward now to just say goodbye and hope she would come soon at the bar so they could get to know each other better. As much as he knew a lot of people around here, Clyde wasn’t one to have many friends either; and the bar, for all of its animation and music, sometimes got lonely.

On the other side, Meredith couldn’t figure what she was supposed to do. She felt like she had managed to establish a sufficient closeness for them to be relatively at ease with the other, and maybe become friends in the near future. She did seem to be on the right track in this bloody investigation, after all.

However, she didn’t want all of this to go to waste. What if when she came back to the bar a few days from then, their closeness had worn of? She couldn’t take that risk. Re-entering the fray would make her appear nothing but creepy.

Clearing her throat and feeling Clyde’s gaze upon her, she started before her courage betrayed her.

“Could I- I mean, I know I haven’t known you for more than a day, but, you’re being all nice and good company and I could really use a friend here, seeing as I, you know, don’t know anyone, really. Could I perhaps have your number?” Meredith internally cringed at how desperate and selfish she sounded to her own ears. “Only if you want, of course.”

When she dared to look at him in the eyes at the end of her rambling, Clyde’s cheeks had gained a pink tint but a sincere smile was plastered on his face.

“I wouldn’t mind being your first friend here.” He honestly answered.

His agreement felt like a personal victory rather than a successfully done stage in a complicated work. The bartender pulled his phone –an unremarkable black Samsung, with a few cracks to its protection screen, probably bought the year before or so– and unlocked it so she could type her number in his contacts.

When she validated her information, his contacts page appeared on screen for a second. Meredith pretended not to note that he had few people registered in his phone; she quickly read the name of Jimmy – _his brother, she remembered–_ , as well as those of a certain Dr Lowe, a Jack Harris and a Mellie – _she had heard this name before, was she his sister? She should have paid more attention to Sarah's briefing_ –, before she gave the phone back to him.

“I’ll send you a text, so you can have my number.” He assured her.

And so they parted, Meredith going to her car –gladly discovering it in its previous not-so-pristine condition– and Clyde entering the bar to make sure everything would be in order for him to open that night.

As the analyst drove back to her house, cooing at her car as if coming back to a loved pet, she shared the same slight smile the bartender would wear until late at night, when the hustle and bustle of the bar a Saturday evening caught up to him.

When Meredith’s phone vibrated while she passed the threshold of her door, she dropped her books down on her kitchen counter to hastily pull her phone from her pocket. It nearly slipped from her hands, before she could light the cell phone’s screen and discover the messages.

_You couldn’t be a credible Jane if you sew your mouth shut._

_Charlotte Lucas, though…_

Meredith scoffed at Sarah’s answer. The insufferable brat. She _had_ read it after all.

_You’re one to talk… your Ladyship._

Clyde now far from her mind, she put her phone away in order to grab a paper and pen to start writing the grocery list she had been too lazy to make the previous days.

“Fun, fun, fun…” she hummed ironically.

_In the sun, sun, sun…_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As you have read, there is also a bit of Meredith/Sarah, because I really like their kind of non-friendship. They won't admit it, but they are very important to each other... It will be one of the issues of this story; not only Meredith's relationship with Clyde but also her peculiar relationship with the agent.  
> I hope this subplot won't bore you to death, haha !  
> Bonus point for those who recognise the last reference! ;)


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy new year everyone !   
> As Jacques Brel would have it, "I wish you endless dreams and the furious desire to realise some of them. I wish you to love what is to be loved and to forget what is to be forgotten."

"Did you know that the chances of winning the lottery are of one out of nineteen millions? You bet winners are so happily showing off with their big checks.” Meredith ranted as she finished her calculation. “The money I would’ve lost there if children were allowed to participate. Have you ever played, Clyde?”

The bartender shook his head and another drink. Wednesday night, busy night. As the students would have it –Wednesdays are the new Fridays. A few groups had come to chill after what he heard had been a pretty tough mock exam.

Clyde had never been to university, instead enlisting in the army. Sometimes, he thought over his years of high school, the advices of the career counselor. Contrary to popular belief, if Jimmy was the most sharp-witted, it was Clyde who was the smartest, and who had been the best student out of them both. He was hard working and had never been one to object to reading over his lessons. In fact, he could have joined the county university without trouble, had the military not been his first choice. Sometimes, he caught himself imagining what his life would be like if he had gone there instead of touring in Iraq. Somehow, he couldn’t quite picture it.

“We Logans are not known for our luck.” He answered, not without a certain form of humor. “I especially.”

His new friend raised an eyebrow. Meredith had never really given much thought to luck. It was nothing but a name given to an irrational frequency of events, not something people had or lacked. She could hardly believe someone –especially a whole family– could be unlucky by nature.

“How come?”

Clyde stubbornly refused to meet her gaze as he handed the drink he had just made to a rather pretty girl who was chatting animatedly with who seemed to be her boyfriend. When she grabbed the glass, she smiled sweetly at him, earning a disapproving glare from the boy who held her waist. Clyde didn’t seem to pay attention to it, probably used by now to young couples’ jealousy.

“You won’t take me seriously if I tell you.”

This brought a smirk to Meredith’s lips.

“You’re probably right. I’m sure I can find a few ways to make you appear quite lucky indeed.” She promised.

At this, the bartender seemed to tense, hiding discreetly his arm behind him. Meredith cringed internally; of course, he had surely heard thousands of time people saying he was lucky to be alive. Surely it was a sore subject for him.

To distract him from these thoughts, she cleared her throat and improvised.

“When did you buy the bar?” she asked, calculating his age and year of discharge in her head.

Grabbing a bottle of gin and the shaker, Clyde looked at her with his brows furrowed.

“2009.”

Perfect.

“Rather convenient you could purchase such a big place at what I suppose was quite the cheap price. And your bar survived the turbulences after the subprime crisis. When you think about it, it is a lot of luck.” She grinned at having made her point.

This managed to bring a small smile to his lips.

“Playing smart, aren’t you?”

“What do you mean playing?”

It had been nearly three weeks since their trip to the library, and their tentative texts and conversations at the bar had turned into a rather playful -if not still a bit reserved- friendship. Meredith now came for a drink several times a week, on the slow nights, to keep him company. If she were to be honest with herself, it really was either this or keeping to her house. And if the house had been a good sulking place in the first weeks, staying there now made her feel rather bored. She would rather have a pleasant company, even if clients ordering drinks often interrupted them. And when they didn’t really know what to say, or if Clyde really was too busy that night, she would either work quietly, her pencil tracing endless numbers on whatever sheet of paper she had at hand, or play pool, all the while listening to the music of the juke-box in the background.

She had met, the week before, the infamous Jimmy Logan. Coming so often to the bar, it really was impossible not to bump into him at some point. Though he now lived near his ex-wife in Sweets, he regularly came to see his younger brother, hence how Meredith made his acquaintance. They hadn’t talked much; the older Logan brother had smirked at Clyde when his younger had introduced them, and had taken his leave after a quick beer and mindless chatter. Long after his departure, the bartender had been all flustered, his answers quicker and his attention more focused on the clients than his previous conversation partner. At night, after Meredith had left, he had sent her an awkward text to apologize about his brother’s interruption and slight teasing.

There was something about him that surfaced this night. The analyst had never doubted that he was quite the private man, but seeing him all timid in presence of both his brother and his new friend had been something else. There was no way he was too shy to take a little bit of brotherly teasing; he already took plenty from her without so much as a blush. Maybe it was something between them, the kind of things only siblings can understand. Being an only child, she probably just couldn’t figure.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the low voice of the bartender.

“Anyway, I was wondering if maybe you’d like to, I don’t know, come and watch a movie or something this week end?”

His tentative offer was followed by a bashful look, as he put a bottle back behind the counter after serving a shot to a short man with a baseball cap.

Meredith bit her lip, internally cursing.

“I’m sorry, I’ll have to put a rain check on that… I’m afraid I must go to a family reunion this weekend. I’ve been on complicated terms with my mother ever since she remarried, and she’ll kill me if I don’t come.” She half-heartedly answered.

 

“Meredith! I’m so happy to see you!” a middle-aged woman aggressively hugged the analyst as soon as she set foot in the house. “It’s been too long!”

Discreetly sighing, she managed to get out of the air-depriving grip of her elder.

“Hi, Mom.”

The house was just as she remembered it. The main corridor was decorated with mixed photographs of her -distant- relatives, a few more images having been added recently. The horrible one of her six-year-old self covered in ice cream and tears was still there, at eye level on the left; but she pretended not to see it, just like every time she came. It seemed like every memory related to this house was either incredibly embarrassing or clearly unpleasant.

Take the first photo on the right side of the wall, as an example. It had been taken in her garden when she was about eight. By this time, her parents and the neighbors had met plenty of times, and become such great friends –to their daughters' great displeasure– that they had broken down the fence separating their respective gardens. No way to avoid seeing the little brat anymore; she could just accept to lend her the toys and ‘be nice’.

By the time she had grown up and stopped playing in the garden, preferring to keep to her bedroom and avoid her teen neighbor at all costs, their parents had gotten so close that between shared dinners in one couple or the other’s house, they almost lived together.

To this day, Meredith still dreaded looking out the window to their shared garden; but not for the same reasons anymore.

“Your sister was rather impatient to see you, by the way! She’s in her room working, you should go and check on her while Charlie sets the table.”

Upon the insistence of her mother, who was practically shoving her towards the stairs to the bedrooms, the young woman quickly waved at the man busying himself at the dining table and quietly went up the stairs.

Charlie was a charming man; she’d give him that. He had always been a rather handsome and easy-going fellow, the ‘easy-to-love’ kind, if loving was ever easy. Really, Meredith could comprehend how her mother had been seduced by his charms. She just couldn’t accept it.

“Stepsister.” She grumbled under her breath as she knocked on the light blue door, with little wooden letters spelling a child’s name; this one hadn’t changed much ever since Charlie had moved in, twenty-something years before.

As the occupant of the room told her she could come in, the young woman opened the door and took a few steps inside. This had changed, if nothing else; princess figurines had long made way for CDs and books, movie posters for clean walls  slightly darker than the door. There was, admittedly, a rather calming atmosphere in this room; though it didn’t prevent Meredith from being on edge. The window was opened on an all-too familiar scene, of an all-too familiar house, bringing an all-too familiar shiver down her spine. Looking straight at one of the windows of the house, she could almost make out the details of the one room in which she had spent so much time throughout her life.

Adverting her eyes, she tried not to think about it.

At the desk, a tall woman was hunched over a computer, furiously typing away in what looked like an email. With her voice flat as ever, Meredith greeted her.

“Hi, Sarah.”

 

“And why exactly did you move for your job?”

It took every bit of her patience –as well as Sarah’s raised eyebrows– for Meredith to come up with a calm answer. Not that her mother was intrusive or anything like that –if anything, she was simply trying to reconnect with her. It was just her over-enthusiast tone; the very one she always used when she talked on the phone to her friends, to pretend everything was all right. Meredith couldn’t stand this tone, and have it now directed at her was even more unnerving.

“Well, this region of West Virginia was lacking analysts, so… I saw this as an opportunity. Working in such places makes you more prone to be promoted to privileged places afterwards. I have high hopes of being transferred to the home office in Washington in the coming year.” She recited the script Sarah had prepared for her.

From her place at the other end of the table, the special agent smiled all the while Meredith glared at her. Of course, her mother didn’t know she had been fired. She would believe this story no matter how stupid it was.

It’s not like she knew her daughter so well, the analyst guessed. Ever since the divorce, the angsty teen she had been had done everything in her power to avoid Melinda Pryce-Grayson, getting her father to have full-time custody, all the while Sarah had stuck with Charlie and embraced this new family.

Still, the look of pride in her mother’s eyes was as authentic as ever.

“My girls, both so successful… I’m so happy for you.”

Her mother’s radiant joy was too much; it felt like being at the receiving end of this smile burnt Meredith, tempting her to comment, to say anything as long as it was bitter and offensive, if only to tarnish this brilliance that was blinding her.

Frantically searching for her phone in her pockets, she stood up and shot them an apologetic smile.

“I have to get this phone call, I’m sorry.”

And with this, she fled.

In her hurry to get out, she missed the way Charlie discreetly came to hold his wife’s hand, or the sorry look Sarah gave them.

 

“Please get me out of here.” She begged through the phone. “Erwin, I can’t see her so happy in this house and with this man. It is all so wrong. She’s there, playing good housewife and happy marriage, and all I can see is my dad being his usual miserable self.”

She closed her eyes and sat on the doorstep, letting out a long breath to try and calm herself and the tingling in her fingers.

“He loved her so much, Erwin. Her and Charlie, they were so important to him. He didn’t even ask anything of them during the divorce, no reparation or what.”

She shot a look at the now grey and barren shared space between her mother’s new home and her childhood house. Where was now dirt and a wild grass, there used to be children's plastic toys and flowers. The thought alone was enough to make her mood plummet further down.

“He didn’t even have the heart to put the fence back in the garden. When they married two months later, he just opened a beer and watched TV. It’s like he doesn’t even hate her for what she did to him, and it makes me sick to see her disregard all the shit he went through because of her.”

Taking a deep breath in, Meredith let her head rest on the door behind her. She would have to get back inside soon. As much as the pure ‘fight or flight’ like instinct within her told her to run away, the reasonable part of her knew she would do nothing more than hurt her _family_ –she would have to get used to call them that, one day.

“Call me back when you can.”

As she ended the call and was about to put her phone back in her pocket, a certain name on her contact list caught her attention. After a second of hesitation, she tapped on its icon.

_I wish I were with you right now._

No, this felt too personal. Too close, too soon.

_Are family reunions supposed to be this lame?_ She joked instead.

A few moments later, she sighed and opened the conversation again. This would feel too close again, but to be honest, every minute passed in this house made her remember more fondly the time she spent far from it.

_I can’t wait to be back so we can have this movie time we should’ve had today._

 

The rest of the evening with her mother, Charlie and Sarah went by as slowly as ever. As it turns out, Meredith figured time wouldn’t flow faster with her showing as little interest as possible, and so she eventually mingled in the conversations.

She didn’t know that, five hundred miles away –give or take–, a certain bartender was shaking drinks in a furious good mood. Clyde had received her message as he was serving Earl another beer, the Saturday night already wearing him down as students, on top of the usual patrons, invaded the bar. And as much as he couldn’t wait to close up so he could sleep until noon the next day, the little text he received from his new friend in town pleased him. In his eyes, this was as close to an ‘I miss you’ as friendship would get, and he would gladly accept it.

Of course, though many tended to interpret his silence as lack of intelligence, Clyde was no fool. He didn’t dare to give himself hope as he may have done long ago, when he still cared what women would think of him, still fantasized their fondness for him; imagining what it would be like to hold them, kiss them, fuck them. Clyde wasn’t the same man anymore; hadn’t been for quite the long time.

Clyde liked to think he had grown up and out of that boyish idea that a boy and a girl couldn’t be friends without there being secretly more to that. Now, after all the shit he went through, both during his tours and because of his brother, he had decided to let his aspirations rest, and stop fretting when he had a female friend. Not that he had too many of them; or any, in fact. Sure, he got along fine with the lady who owned the bakery not far from his bar, or the florist’s wife; but he wouldn’t consider them as “friends”, more like acquaintances.

Things had changed when Meredith had started coming to the bar. She was from out of town, she didn’t really know anyone else, and so it had been easy to have all of her attentions directed at him for these past few weeks. Easy and enjoyable; their light banter and occasional texts at night had left Clyde wanting more, though he feared he was going to have less and less. Meredith had started challenging the regulars at the pool of the Duck Tape, introducing herself to a couple older men and a few younger trying to learn, as well as their significant others. The analyst was more and more often invited to join them for a game, and thus spent less time with Clyde; though she always made sure to stay with him for a while when she came to drink.

How long before she would stay with her new friends, eventually forgetting him?

It was this knowledge that had motivated him to try and take the next step in their friendship; to see each other outside of work, and see if what they had held water there too. To say her family reunion came at the wrong time was such an understatement; the disappointment had Clyde moping for two days.

Receiving her message undoubtedly brightened his day. She would have preferred spending time with him; and somehow, despite the reasonable part of him trying not to over-interpret things, his heart filled with joy at the perspective of seeing her outside of his work, where they wouldn’t be interrupted every few minutes by a patron asking for a drink.

Or worse; by Jimmy.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi ! After a very long time, here is the fifth chapter of Fantasio...  
> Enjoy, and don't hesitate to give me your thoughts on the story!

Cracking her door open, Meredith surveyed the corridor, feeling very much like these spies in the movies from the 70s. No one in sight; the coast was clear. The clock by her nightstand showed that it was a few minutes past midnight, which wasn’t so late. With a bit of luck, her mother and Charlie would already be sleeping, and Sarah… Well, there were no chances she would already be asleep. This was why she would need to be very quiet and discreet when she would walk past her door and down the stairs.

For a moment, Meredith wondered if it wouldn’t be easier climbing down her window, but the reasonable part of her brain scolded her at the thought. She wasn’t a teen anymore. She could take the stairs and go out by the front door, like the adult she was.

It isn’t called sneaking out when one leaves by the front door, is it?

“And… May I ask where you are going?”

Discovered.

In the living room, a couple meters from the door and comfortably sat in one of the couches, was Sarah bloody Grayson. A steamy cup of black coffee in hand and her computer on her lap, she seemed to be working late, like most of the time. She had let her hair fall on her shoulders, like she hardly ever did, but what was the most unusual about her was the disappointed look in her eyes.

“Just got down to fix myself a glass of water.” Meredith lied, though unable to meet the pair of dark eyes looking straight at her.

Out of all the months they had spent together, and the lifetime before that, never had she expressed such disappointment before. They had been cross most of the time, and had never seemed to agree on anything, but never had Meredith seen such a look on her face; the very look that told her she was pushing the limits.

Sarah sighed and put the computer beside her.

“Do you often sleep in such uncomfortable clothes?” her stern voice played along.

She knew the answer. Meredith hung her head and breathed, before daring to meet Sarah’s eyes.

“Erwin is in town and he’s throwing a little party. Something small, friends only. I’d be back in a few hours.”

She knew she was lying. So did Sarah.

“Erwin’s parties are orgies fuck rooms are jealous of. He’s got a fine taste in men, or ‘friends’ as you call them, but whether he’s capable of entertaining them without stripping naked is another matter entirely. What about Clyde?”

The name quite sobered Meredith, as guilt surged through her. She _had_ thought about him when she had received Erwin’s invitation. Almost immediately, in fact. His soft eyes, and the pout on his lips. But then, she had figured that they weren’t together; and that it wasn’t like it was cheating to go and see a good friend, and maybe make out a bit with a guy, if she met one remotely interested in women. No harm done.

The guilt inside her was starting to take the face of a certain man she was growing quite fond of, and in a moment of honesty with herself, she wondered why she was doing this.

“Meredith, I know you may have thought it wasn’t a bad idea at some point, and I’ll blame the wine on that. But I don’t want you to tear this family apart and sabotage your own life because of your commitment issues.” Sarah’s voice had softened.

The seriousness in the dark eyes of the special agent as she pronounced the words felt like a punch in Meredith’s gut. _Issues._ _Sabotage_. _Commitment._ The mere thought of having this discussion with her stepsister, a few minutes past midnight on a Saturday night –or Sunday morning–, made her stomach churn. Her head suddenly felt light, too light, and she gripped the railing of the stairs to stop the spinning.

The words had always been a taboo between them; because as much as she didn’t want to admit it, Sarah was probably the person in the world who knew her best. She was too perceptive for her own good, though she generally had the sensitivity of never confronting her so bluntly about it.

“I understand, Meredith, I too struggle with it sometimes, but it helps to talk about it…”

The analyst shook her head, a bitter taste in her mouth.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Another lie. “I’m going back to bed. I’ll see you in the morning.”

As she fled back to lock herself in the guest room she had been offered, Meredith felt the burning disappointment of her former housemate at the back of her head.

She wasn’t perfect.

 

Sleep didn’t seem keen on indulging her. Despite the chill of the night, the covers felt too hot, the ticking sound of the clock too loud, and she found her eyes desperately open, her thoughts running wild as she tried to think about anything that wasn’t her discussion downstairs.

Instead, she thought of Clyde. He had answered her text from earlier with one of those smiley things, which was rather hilarious considering his usual straight face. Meredith highly suspected he just hadn’t known how to answer to her; she really didn’t peg him as the smiley type. She had teased him about it in return, and she could almost imagine an embarrassed blush on his cheeks as he had admitted he was just trying it out, though he did feel like an idiot afterwards.

There was something with this man she couldn’t quite comprehend. Meredith had met many men in her life, and gone out with quite a few of them. She had met handsome men who were not much more than that; smart ones who held their own beauty; haughty jerks who couldn’t spare a minute of their time;

Quiet men with tentative smiles and a soft look in their eyes.

Somehow, Clyde was unknown ground. She didn’t know where to step with him, and in a certain way, it was endearing. He was gentle, the kind of person who looks after others without them noticing. The kind of man who made sure she wouldn’t sleep in her car on a parking lot at night, who offered her advices whenever she was in need of them, but kept silent when he knew she wouldn’t accept them at the moment. He was a great listener, and a genuine one at that. It seemed like nothing he was told went unnoticed, and he could easily remember the faces of people who he hadn’t seen in months.

But when he talked –when he talked, she was the one who listened. Her original distaste for the idea of him she had built on Sarah’s files had long since made way for a certain curiosity, like an equation you sit down and consider for a moment before passionately trying to solve. At least, this was the feeling Meredith associated to it.

_You still up?_ She gave in and sent him, seeing as sleep denied her.

She did hope he was there. Texting Erwin to tell him about why she wouldn’t come was out of the question; the thought of telling him was making her feel nauseous. He knew of her issues already, and surely he wouldn’t mind leaving his guests for a few moments the time to call her and reassure her, like he did most times; but it wasn’t his voice Meredith was currently craving, it wasn’t his merry presence or his teasing comments.

_I just finished closing the bar. Are you okay?_

The vibrations shook the analyst from her thoughts. His contact photo was one she had taken a few days before at the bar. He was wearing one of his usual shirts and, all in all, was very much like his usual reserved self, but this day, he had appeared to be in an exceptional good mood. This was a look that suited him well, and so, she had snapped a picture of him as he was serving some worker at her right. When she had showed him, the word ‘cute’ may have escaped her, and he had blushed slightly.

_I don’t know._ She replied honestly.

His answer didn’t wait.

_Want me to call you?_

Neither did hers.

_I think I’d like that._

 

Strangely enough, upon her return, Meredith didn’t dare to go and have a drink at the Duck Tape for a few days. When Clyde tentatively asked her if something was wrong when he didn’t see her step in the bar for her usual pool-Thursday, she just said she had to catch up on some work she should have been doing in the weekend.

Truth is, the analyst didn’t have any work to do, and so she ended up mindlessly flipping through pages of her latest acquisition; an anthology of philosophy her mother had given her, in memory of her university days when she had taken a liking to the optional subject. Meredith was a bit scared of facing Clyde. That night on the phone, they had talked for about an hour, before she ended up falling asleep listening to his deep voice; which was embarrassing enough as it was.

The only fact that she had wanted to talk to him about her problems was embarrassing. This was the kind of discussion you have with your most trusted friends, not with a random guy your stepsister set you up with. He hadn’t said much about what little but essential she had told him; instead reassuring her and telling her about his day to take her mind out of it.

And now, she was trying to take her own mind out of him. How ironic.

“So, he bought the bar in 09, when the real estate business was at its cheapest. Probably took a big loan though. I’m not sure how much was left of his honorable discharge pay after his medical treatments, but I think it must have covered them.” She doodled on a paper as she thought aloud for the voicemail to record. “Most of the stuff looks old, and I know for sure the jukebox was already here before the former guy sold the bar. As for the table football and pool, well, this kind of investment is rather common for such bars. I’d say 600$ for the pool and 250$ for the table football, at most.” She added the prices on her paper.

She closed her eyes and numbers danced under her eyelids. Prices of the drinks, of the tables, the television, the stocks. Estimations of the electricity and gas bills, salary of the guy in the kitchen, amortizations, interest rate for his loan. Her pen blindly wrote them all on the paper, as she came up with an improvised balance sheet for the Duck Tape.

“Considering the Duck Tape’s popularity, I think he’s solvent on his own. If he participated in this heist, and had his share of the money, he isn’t reckless enough to spend it all to the eyes of the world.” She concluded. “Will be further investigated.”

Looking over her notes one more time to make sure she hadn’t forgotten anything important, she ended the call. Seeing Sarah face to face had woken her up. Meredith had given more thought to her ‘conspiracy theory’ and, even though she didn’t believe one instant that the Logan brothers could have been on this heist, she had figured that she may as well comply with the task her stepsister had given her. Staying in West Virginia for so long to stubbornly refuse to give Sarah the information she wanted was maybe even more stupid than to stay and do her job. It’s not like she would find anything anyway.

Her eyes darted to the dreaded calendar in the opposite wall of the living room.

The next week would be the end of her second month in West Virginia, meaning she still had four more to go. If everything went fine, she would leave on January the 30th, as it was the end of her contract. She would then make her goodbyes to Clyde –if he managed to put up with her until then– and either drive back to NY as was the plan, to find a new apartment and a new job, or maybe indulge her father in his fantasy of her taking up the management of his business after him, if she didn’t feel like coming back to the Big Apple.

Meredith had always been bad at looking to the future. What worried her wasn’t so much the next four months she would be staying in West Virginia; she had established some kind of routine, occasionally broken when she would meet with a couple colleagues for a drink or if she joined Clyde at the Duck Tape on a slow night. Having a routine was good. It was steady and reassuring. The country was making it even easier, despite the boredom she sometimes felt. Making choices was what Meredith couldn’t stand. What was Gide’s saying again? Something along the lines “choosing means renouncing”, if she recalled well.

Her phone’s vibration surprised her, as she wasn’t expecting a response from Sarah so soon after her report. When she saw the name of her contact, she bit her lip.

 

_You coming tonight? I miss seeing you around._

Staring down at his phone, Clyde frowned. He felt ridiculous from asking when he would get to see her again, as well as vulnerable from admitting he missed her. He really didn’t want to bother her with her work; he knew how important it was to her and how she was used to work from home on the weekends. Only, he couldn’t help but be a bit impatient to meet with her again. It had been almost a week since her last night at the Duck Tape, and as it was one of her pool nights, they hadn’t gotten to talk so much. Jimmy had come to keep him company earlier in the week, and had asked about her, yet Clyde had found himself unable to answer him as to when she would be back. Ever since their phone call on Saturday night –or Sunday morning–, he couldn’t help but feel like she was being distant. Did she regret telling him about her family?

The bartender hoped it wasn’t the problem. He was honestly flattered that she would choose to talk to him about it, trust him with her family history. As a bartender, he was used to listen to drunken lonely people telling him about their problems, without really expecting any answer. But with her, it had been different, because she was his friend and he was sincerely interested in every bit of her life she would share with him.

This trust she had showed him was what motivated him to send his message, when all instinct of self-preservation inside of him was screaming not to let on how he cared when she was not here. It had never brought him much luck to be so candid with his feelings, with women even less. It was ridiculous, really. They hadn’t met so long ago, and Clyde had other friends. Chances were she would make fun of him for being so emotional over a week without seeing the other.

As he was about to put his phone away to check on the few patrons who were already there, it buzzed in his hand.

_Let me have dinner and I’m all yours for the night_ , it read.

The man smiled, admittedly a bit flushed at her bold choice of words, when another message appeared on the screen, a second after the first.

_I miss you too._

 

Despite all of her hesitation to face Clyde, a good quarter of an hour staring at his picture and reading his last message convinced Meredith to face the chill of the evening and hop in her car for a quick ride to the bar. A part of her she couldn’t deny was in fact quite eager to meet with him; and so, after giving a nod at the few patrons who were smoking under the porch, she found herself pushing the door of the Duck Tape with a small smile on her lips.

Clyde was unsurprisingly behind the bar, apparently checking a couple of young girls’ IDs with a frown on his face. One of the two, dressed in a deep purple t-shirt, was fluttering her eyelashes at him, obtaining nothing in return but a quizzical look from the bartender. Meredith held back a laugh at the scene, watching from the door as Clyde shook his head, looking exasperated as ever, and indicated the door –noticing his admirer at the same time. The annoyance in his eyes turned to amusement when he noted her bit lip and the entertained look on her face.

However, the teens didn’t seem to share their feeling, seeing as one of them gave him the finger all the while dragging her friend by the arm towards the door.

“Come on Meg, this crip’s bar is too lame anyway!”

Meredith immediately lost her smile.

As the deep purple girl was about to open the door, the analyst’s arm shot to stand in the teen’s way, as she was leaning against the other side of the doorframe.

“What have you just called him?” She asked, voice stone cold as she gave them her best scornful, scolding, _Grayson_ signature look.

To her credit, the teen’s friend Meg did look rather mortified to be in this position; but her companion didn’t seem so impressed, as she stood by her words.

“Crip. What do you old people call them?”

On some irrelevant level, Meredith wondered if she had ever been so young and stupid. Surely on some level, but, had she ever stoop that low or were young people nowadays just plain damn offensive?

Infuriated by the girl’s insolence, the analyst leaned towards her with her best murdering glare.

“We old people know to show some respect. So you little fuckers are going to make your apologies, or I assure you, you might not get out of here with all of your teeth. Now that would be a tragedy wouldn’t it?”

Her squinted eyes seemed to convince the younger girls that there was no avoiding confrontation. The shier one pulled on her friend’s arm and muttered something about not wanting to be caught in trouble, but the other’s pride seemed to be a tough thing to swallow. Meredith broke eye contact with her only one second to check on Clyde, who was looking at them straight-faced, tight-lipped and obviously embarrassed. When he noticed her looking his way, he averted his eyes, forcing a small smile on his lips as if to tell her it was okay.

Except it was not.

“What are you waiting for?”

After dramatically rolling her eyes, the offending girl made her way back to the counter, her friend following her timidly, and apologized with such a sour look Meredith wondered if it physically hurt her. Nonetheless, Clyde nodded at them, accepting their excuses, and so the woman found herself reluctantly out their way to the door.

What a way to start the evening.

“Hey, are you all right?” She asked Clyde as she took her usual place on the left side of the counter.

The bartender nodded, without lifting his gaze to meet hers, and grabbed a beer from behind the counter. His friend watched as he brought it to a patron’s table, admittedly a bit worried about him. She knew it was far from being the first time he endured such cruel nicknames, but it was the first time she had to see him dealing with it, and if anything, she was probably the most freaked out of the two.

When the bartender came back to her with a whiskey, she silently begged for eye contact, to make sure he was okay. The man didn’t seem keen on indulging her, seeing as he busied himself wiping the counter in front of her, though it was already quite clean.

“Clyde…” Meredith called his name softly, and he stopped to take a deep breath.

Before she could tell him anything else, what exactly she wasn’t sure herself, he spoke, in a low voice.

“Is it how… How people see me, instantly? Like a disabled person? Was it the first thing you were told when you asked around for a bar, or the first thing you thought when you saw me?” He dared to look up for a second, just enough for his friend to see a pained flash in his eyes before he hung his head low again. “Will I ever be anything else?”

Lost for words, Meredith instead took his good hand in hers, squeezing it softly. His palm was warm under her fingers, his skin a bit rough, but in a pleasant way. She sat there holding his hand for a few minutes, trying to form an answer to him, which proved to be rather difficult when she was herself still pissed at the teens for insulting him that way.

“You already are something else.” She managed to calm down to tell him. “You are the nicest person I have ever met, for instance.”

Her tentative smile made him huff, but the light blush on his cheeks and the way he looked at her timidly were signs enough that his spirit was, slowly but surely, lifting.

“And if you want to know everything, my first thought when I came here was that I didn’t expect the bartender to be so handsome.” She tried to tease, her voice betraying her as it took a flat tone way too serious for her own well.

The admission immediately made her blush and chuckle in light embarrassment, but seeing his face flush similarly and the stupid little smile on his lips, she figured it was worth the awkwardness of her statement.

As if his hand was suddenly burning under her own, Meredith hesitantly released it, coming to grab her cold glass of whiskey. When it proved not to be enough to quell the uneasiness in her gut, she took a small gulp of the burning drink. In front of her, Clyde seemed to wake up at the loss of contact between them, as he resumed cleaning the already pristine counter with a shy look and a quick smile.

“Thanks.” Clyde finally answered, and his deep brown eyes didn’t seem so sad anymore. “I’m happy you’re here.” He quietly added. “Tonight. With me.”

Meredith felt the heavy tension in the air, and all words left her mind. There was only his tender confession and her racing thoughts; his self-consciousness and her denied issues. Eventually, she managed a small smile and a quick ‘me too’, and Clyde let out a huff of laughter; probably realizing how ridiculous they both looked, not daring to meet the other’s eyes and timidly expressing their mutual affection.

“I guess I’m lucky you’re such a bad paperwork fraudster.” He teased as he grabbed a bottle of beer from a shelf behind him, his demeanor now more relaxed and almost playful.

As he got around the bar to refill a pint on a table at the other end of the bar, near the pool, Meredith shook her head with an amused snort.

“I guess you are.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I know it's been a long time since the last chapter... So this is what I've been up to this past month :  
> \- A SOMA AU called "Transmissions", starring Kylo Ren, which I am quite proud of. I loved SOMA's aesthetic and lore, and tried to do it justice in my own way.  
> \- A few chapters of my Kylo Ren story "Of Memories And Whatever Remains".  
> Don't hesitate to take a look at them if you're interested !  
> Have a nice day you all !


	6. Chapter 6

If asked later about her relationship with Clyde, Meredith would tend to say that she realized she was in deep shit the exact moment she knew her undercover investigation was taking the best turn she could hope for. That moment being when her friend and most obliging bartender asked her to go on a date with him.

It had been a couple of weeks since the ‘Crip’ incident, and the analyst liked to think they had come out of this event closer than they were before. Following their awkward moment of telling the other how happy they were to have met, things had been pretty much how they were before, easy discussion and playful teasing; but now, with these _looks_ that just softly screamed “ _I’m happy you’re here. Tonight. With me.”_.

The weekend following the slur, they had gone out to the library once more, and then headed to Clyde’s house, or rather trailer, to Meredith’s great interest. If her friend had seemed rather humbled to take her to his home, she had revelled in every moment there. She had never been in a trailer before, and therefore had gotten a bit curious about how things worked in this narrow accommodation. Clyde seemed to be an organized person, though not overly so like a certain woman she knew. His place still felt very homely, and so Meredith instantly felt at ease within its walls.

They had decided to catch up on this movie time they couldn’t have the past weekend, but had quickly gotten into an interesting debate involving recent movies against older ones –Clyde had been positively offended when she had admitted her dislike for Dr. Strangelove or the original Mary Poppins. Finally, they had ended up reaching an agreement when the man had suggested Star Wars I. To the analyst’s surprise –she hadn’t pegged him as a science fiction fan–, he did have a box set with all of the six movies. For all the time they talked about it, the bartender prayed for her not to discover the incredible nerd he had been in his early teen years; but thankfully, most of his old Doctor Who and D&D stuff was in cardboard boxes under his bed. They weren’t at this stage yet.

Of course, it didn’t really make sense to _only_ watch the first movie without at least watching the first trilogy; and maybe the second too, while they were at it. This is how they agreed to meet up whenever their schedules matched –essentially, Saturday afternoons before his shift at the bar, or Sunday nights– to watch the rest of the saga. Meredith was fine with it, the last time she had watched them being when she was still a young girl; plus, Clyde’s enthusiasm and almost childish pleasure at watching the movie again was rather endearing.

The Logan couch was quite comfortable and therefore perfectly adequate in its function. However, by their fourth movie encounter; late at night a Saturday, after his shift at the bar, as insomnia hit them both; Meredith discovered that Clyde’s shoulder was even more so. Somewhere in the middle of A New Hope, the man’s warmth next to her, the late hour and the fifteen minutes drive in the dark to his place had reason to her sleeplessness. As it turns out, what was supposed to be a second-long rest of her eyelids ended up a solid eight-hours sleep like she hadn’t had in quite a long time.

Ever the gentleman, Clyde had stopped the movie to properly tuck her in. That she could be so comfortable with him as to fall asleep on his shoulder warmed his heart, in a way he hadn’t dared to feel for so long it felt almost foreign. For a few minutes, he had watched her sleep, watched the way resting made her look younger, not so brooding or teasing anymore –though he liked these traits in her like any other. She was pretty.

Eventually, he had gone to bed too, feeling a bit creepy and very much flustered at the thought of her waking up to see him like this. Still, the thought of waking up tomorrow and seeing her as soon as breakfast brought a smile to his lips, and so he fell into slumber.

Strangely enough, the same thought popped in Meredith’s mind as she woke up the next morning –admittedly, a bit more like noon–, to entirely different consequences.

She couldn’t remember the last time she had slept in a man’s house like this –except maybe Erwin’s, but it was different. Whenever she went out looking for a one-night lover, she always made a point to either leave after they were done or made sure he didn’t stay the night. Staying was according too much importance, too much intimacy to the act; and though nothing had happened with Clyde, she was still mortified to be there. The air felt heavy around her, suffocating as she listened for any noise.

Thankfully, she couldn’t hear anything besides the quiet ringing of nervousness in her ears. Clyde had to be sleeping, still. In retrospect, it wasn’t so surprising, considering the crazy hours he was working, but at the time, it felt like a blessing.

She had to get out.

Before guilt could creep up on her, she fled the trailer. Her car was still parked outside next to Clyde’s. Cringing when the engine roared slightly or when the tires squeaked on the gravel, Meredith drove away.

 

When Clyde woke up, the sheets on the couch were messily disposed –as if one left in a hurry– and the pillow was cold. His enthusiasm plummeted when he realized she was gone. For a couple minutes, he looked around for any note she might have left to tell him she had gone to work or something –though it was Sunday– or any other thing that could explain her early departure. When he didn’t find any, a crushing disappointment came over him. He had hoped, no, _guessed_ that she would stay. There was no reason not to; it was like a sleepover. A grown-up sleepover.

A part of him felt guilty for being so disheartened at her absence. Surely she had her reasons. Maybe she had gotten an important call; maybe she had woken up so early she had figured she would let him rest…

But why didn’t she leave a note then? A text?

His morning routine of checking on the mail, burning his bacon and listen to the radio felt rusty. Boring. He couldn’t pretend he wasn’t upset; every few seconds, his thoughts went back to Meredith and the reason she left. His sad, too-often-wounded heart kept making up reasons; and with every beat, they hurt a bit more. Halfway through his bacon, self-doubt crept up on him.

Maybe she had realized she had given him hope, falling asleep on him like that, and had been too mortified to face him in the morning. Maybe he had been too insistent when he had asked if she wanted to come over. Maybe it was his fault. Maybe she had realized how boring he was. Or decided he wasn’t worth the time. Or that he wasn’t good enough, attractive enough; maybe it was because of his cursed hand.

Mellie always said he shouldn’t think like that, that he was a good man and that he had every reason to feel good about himself; that sooner than later, he would find what he’s wishing for.

But, his sister be damned, Clyde didn’t feel so good about himself. He had long ago made peace with the idea of his prosthetic arm, but his experiences in the romantic department had never been the most successful –and even less since his injury. It seemed everyone around him found fulfillment in their love life. Jimmy had Sylvia, Mellie was fooling around with Joe Bang all right, and he… Didn’t seem to catch any good kind of attention. Whether he was to blame his natural shyness or his disability, he didn’t know.

Now, he felt stupid for thinking things might be getting better, what with Meredith being so playful and… present. For him. At first, he thought she was only befriending him for lack of anyone better, but with the weeks passing by and as she had made other friends, she still lingered. She always made a point to come to the bar just for him a couple times a week, and always seemed eager to meet up with him on the weekends. Only the other night, he had found one of her key chains under his couch. How it had gotten here, he didn’t know. She was definitely the kind who scattered her things wherever she made herself comfortable, and several times already he had had to keep a jacket, headphones, or even her ID in his office for her to come and get the following night. Freudian slips, he had guessed; unconsciously leaving things where you want to come back.

Now, her bailing out on him this morning wasn’t the end of the world, but still, she could have told him she wouldn’t want to spend the night. He just hoped this wouldn’t make things too weird between them.

As he was resigning himself to this conclusion, deciding to be an adult and stop blaming either of them for her absence, a soft knock at the door startled him.

On his doorstep was standing a familiar woman, still in the same clothes from the night before, with slightly reddened eyes, an unsure smile on her lips and a bag of pastries in her hands.

“I-I thought I would go and get us some breakfast?” it sounded like a question more than anything.

They both knew it was a lie; yet the fragile glint in her eyes was honest. Her hands trembled when she gave him the bag, as if afraid he would refuse it; giving the pastries a taste of peace offerings.

To her relief, and to his as well, his fingers curved around the bag’s handle, and he placed it softly on the nearest surface, a chest of drawers where he usually put his keys.

Before he really knew it, his arms were around her, as they were both awkwardly standing in his doorway. He let out a shaky breath as he felt her quietly return his embrace.

“I’m sorry.” He wouldn’t have heard it hadn’t he listened carefully.

She didn’t need to say more for Clyde to get a glimpse of what was wrong. The slight wavering in her voice told him enough –she was afraid. But Clyde was no resentful man; she came back and it was fine, because despite her now obvious unease she had tried. For him, she had tried, and this thought made his heart flutter and his lips curve into a shy smile.

She put her head in the crook of his neck, and the nice, domestic feeling made him forget he even was upset to begin with; forget even his cursed hand that was resting in the small of her back.

 

Hugging Clyde Logan was nice. It felt nice, like a moment of stasis in the middle of her hectic life. The thought that her growing relationship with Clyde was nothing but a job often haunted her when she was alone in her rented house; but spending time so close to him as to be held in his arms kept these concerns at bay. His simple presence helped to quiet the Grayson voice at the back of Meredith’s head.

Their friendship just felt so… authentic. Never in his presence did Meredith think of what would come the day she would find the eventual proof of his role in the Charlotte Speedway heist. No, these thoughts got back to her when she pulled in her driveway at night, gnawed at her mind when she opened her kitchen sideboard to cook in silence.

If during her first few weeks in West Virginia, her house had been a sanctuary, the situation had slowly revolved and now, she couldn’t stand the place and its blank walls anymore. Not even her habit of scattering her things on every possible surface in the house could make it look like a home, and no music could erase the lonely feeling of a big country house for her all alone. After living for months with a housemate in a city flat, being alone in there felt wrong. During her days in New York, she would often go out at night, or even have Erwin spend the weekend with her. Now, Meredith felt like she didn’t have anywhere else to go than to the Duck Tape.

This is how, between movie weekends and pool nights, Meredith came to spend less and less time in her rented accommodation.

After this first night spent in Clyde’s trailer, and her ridiculous patched up excuse to explain her escape, her friend had been careful to always drive her back to her place when she felt too tired to drive; that way, no more upsetting surprises in the mornings. Meredith didn’t know how much he had guessed of her reasons not to stay, but was glad that he never mentioned it again. As he had told her this day; he was just happy she came back.

“I gotta admit I’m a bid sad it’s already the end of our Star Wars meetings.” Meredith commented between two yawns as the credits of Return of the Jedi rolled by. “We’ll have to find something else.”

The past week, they had watched the fourth again, as well as the fifth, and on this Saturday night, well past midnight, they had decided on a whim to watch the last movie. Meredith had helped him close the bar, and they had driven straight to his trailer. Now, as the living room clock indicated an ungodly hour around four in the morning, it was time to go.

Clyde nodded through a repressed yawn of his own, and regretfully got up from the comfy and warm nest they had made on the couch. He stretched out his arms, his back to her, and caught sight of his car keys on the chest of drawers next to the door.

“I should drive you home.” He realized. “Wouldn’t want to keep you from your beauty sleep.” He teased lightly.

When the bartender didn’t hear her usual chuckle following his statement, he turned to her. Meredith was biting her lips, as if considering something she was still unsure of. When she looked up, there was this timid look in her eyes; that he would have called fear if he hadn’t known better.

“Actually, I was thinking on, I mean if you’re okay with it… I could maybe stay? I wouldn’t want you to drive at such an hour, you’re just as exhausted as I am.” She reasoned.

For a few moments, Clyde remained silent. Of course he would let her stay; her question wasn’t quite one. But still, there was a mute, prudent interrogation in his eyes, one he didn’t dare to ask; and one she answered a moment later.

“I’ll be there in the morning.” She quietly added.

Now, the man didn’t know if she would really be there; didn’t know if _she_ even knew that. He nodded nonetheless, and with a tiny smile on his lips, he helped her rearrange the covers on the couch.

Whatever would happen in the morning; Meredith had chosen to stay.

 

The next morning, Clyde woke up tired, his mind a foggy mess as he stretched in his sheets. There were days like this when one doesn’t want to wake up. It had nothing to do with anything in particular; only his muscles protesting against any effort. For a moment, the bartender considered keeping his eyes closed and fall back asleep, but the sudden memory of the last night shook him awake.

When Clyde sat up in his bed, reaching on his bedside table for his prosthetic, he listened carefully for any noise in the trailer. Apart from the slight ticking of a clock, and the faint chirping of birds outside, he couldn’t hear anything. His alarm clock indicated it was around one in the afternoon. A sigh escaped him as he strapped his arm on. It wasn’t like he expected her to be here; and frankly, he was already content that she had chosen to stay the night. Maybe, this time, she had left him a note.

However, as it turns out, Clyde opened the door to his living room to discover a very awake and very present woman sitting on his couch, scribbling nonsensical letters and numbers on blank sheets of paper she must have found in his drawers. Discovering her there gave rise to a happy tingling in his chest, which travelled all the way down to his fingertips.

As if sensing his presence, Meredith turned, jumping from surprise when she took in his tall form.

“Damn it Clyde, you shouldn’t sneak up on people like that!”

This made him chuckle, and she sent him an awkward smile. As he approached her, he couldn’t help but notice how many sheets she had covered in her black-inked spidery handwriting. She wouldn’t say it, and he didn’t need her to; but she had obviously been trying not to freak out too much and he was glad for it.

The analyst must have noticed some sparkling in his still sleepy gaze, because she scoffed and shook her head.

“Don’t get any ideas, I simply couldn’t leave without a car.” She leaned back on her paper, scribbling and circling the solution of her problem.

But Clyde knew better, and her endearingly flushed cheeks told him he wasn’t wrong. If she had had to, she would have walked the way back to the Duck Tape, to get to her car –he wouldn’t even put it past her to walk all the way back to Whitestown if she really needed to get away.

“Sure.” He hummed, a quick smile coming to pull at his lips. “Want to have breakfast, since, you know, you’re here?”

The woman on his couch hesitantly but playfully glared at him, but eventually, a smile tugged at her lips.

“Breakfast would be grand.”

Getting up to follow him in the kitchen part of the trailer –how a home could fit in such a limited, narrow space still amazed her– she caught his gaze lingering on her calculations on the papers.

“What were you solving anyway?”

Meredith shrugged; unsure if the boring truth wouldn’t break the –admittedly a bit tensed but still rather pleasant– atmosphere. Better not try it. She entered the kitchen after him, pondering what to tell that wouldn’t be overly nerdy but still amusing.

“A joke. Sort of.”

She almost let out a small giggle at his companion’s raised eyebrows.

“Don’t make me say it.”

His low chuckle made her roll her eyes in mock irritation, as he pulled the bacon from the fridge and readied a frying pan.

“I’d love to hear that.”

“Fine. You must be the square root of 2… ”

To his credit, Clyde frowned, as if really trying to find a logical thing about a silly riddle, over the frizzling sound of the bacon burning.

“Because I feel irrational about you.” She concluded, a light blush coming to tint her cheeks.

A second of silence followed her statement, before Clyde chuckled and shook his head, obviously quite amused by her antics. When he looked at her, his eyes were filled with an unsettling amount of tenderness.

“You’re such a nerd.” He laughed, softly.

And then he kissed her. It was quick, barely a gentle brush of his lips on hers, and sooner than she knew it was gone, though it left on her lips a lingering warm feeling she could feel travelling down her neck.

Only when she looked up and into his eyes, mouth hanging slightly in surprise, did he seem to wake up. A furious blush ran up his neck and colored his ears and cheeks, and his warm brown eyes gazed down in obvious embarrassment.

“I’m sorry, I… I shouldn’t have done that without askin’ you first.” As he apologized, his accent seemed to grow stronger, as if he was losing his grip on his voice. “I just…”

At least, Meredith realized, he seemed to feel as awkward as she did. Both of them just stood there, taking deep breaths as if to cover the whistling of the frying pan.

 _Tell him you can’t. You’re such a romantic failure anyway. You couldn’t make this work,_ a nasty little voice hissed in her head.

“Clyde…”

“Let me take you out on a date.” He eventually blurted out, cutting her short without really realizing it, as his eyes went up to find her owns.

Caught entirely off guard, Meredith felt her mouth run dry. Incapable of holding his gaze any longer, she eyes the burning meat in the frying pan.

“Breakfast first?” She pathetically smiled.

 

 

“He was so soft, so… so _nice_. I don’t know, I couldn’t think properly. I mean he was happy, we ate breakfast, I agreed to go out on a date with him, because I was on full panic mode. It’s too late now to say no without breaking whatever I have with him. I can’t do it anymore. I just can’t. It was fine when I was just his friend, but I’m not good at this –I’ve never been good at relationships.”

Through her screen, she could feel the burning gaze of her childhood neighbour. For once in her life, Sarah Grayson seemed to have let down her mask of indifference for one of sympathy.

“Think of it as a job. This one isn’t meant to last anyway.” The agent calmly stated.

For some reason, to hear those words upset the analyst even more. Of course she knew that; but the truthfulness of this statement hadn’t fully sunk in before. And now, she could only feel helpless realizing that everything she had right now –the Thursday pool nights, the Saturday movies, her closeness with the quiet bartender, her tea Sundays with the old lady in the house next to hers, and even, to some extent, her work– was built on a fantasy.

She was no Meredith Pryce, not the one she knew herself to be. Ever since she had moved in, separated from all the things and people that used to make her everyday life before, she wasn’t sure who she was being anymore. She had been pretending at first, but one can only pretend for so long. It had been weeks since the last time she had lied to Clyde about anything.

“I’m trying to! But no matter how strange it may appear to you, I can’t just… lie my whole social life here. At first it was easy, but making friends is hardly something you can force and when you do, there’s no backing away. Just because you can be an insensitive bitch doesn’t mean it is how I work too.”

Guilt crept through her as soon as Meredith realised what she had said. Sarah had never been her favourite friend, but she never deserved such hard words. It wasn’t like her job defined her; and a part of Meredith knew she had always been unfair to judge her stepsister for her maturity.

“Listen, Sarah, I’m sorry…”

“Do you know what’s you problem, Meredith Pryce?” Sarah cut her, hurt obvious in her thick voice. “You’re scared. You’d rather wallow in your own self-pity and self-sabotage than give someone an honest chance. This is why you left Tom two days after he told you he loved you, why you bailed out on Ethan just before your anniversary, and why you cheated on the rest when things were starting to get serious. You’re scared of commitment. You’re so fucking terrified.”

At this, Meredith was tempted to protest; it had nothing to do with her past relationships. Bringing them into the argument was incredibly unfair from her stepsister; but when she opened her mouth, no sound got past her lips. Her throat felt constricted, too tight to speak.

“But you’ll never admit it. You’ll keep running from it, breaking hearts, sometimes your own, just because you’re so scared. And it’s sad to see, really, how it would kill you to even say we’re friends, yet you always come back to me when you’re in need. But let me tell you. It’s not by running from your issues that you’ll come to terms with them. You’ll only wake up, one day, and you’ll realise that you’ll be alone, because you will have lost everyone to your fears. And this day, Meredith, it will be too late.”

The young woman felt her head spin in dizziness as Sarah shot her one last angry look before ending the call. As the image froze before being replaced by the agent’s avatar, Meredith caught sight of a single tear rolling down her _friend_ ’s cheek.

“Sarah!” she tried to call back, frantically spamming the calling button, to no avail.

All she obtained was a little red dot next to the agent’s name, taunting her as if claiming she had really fucked up this time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys !  
> It's been a long time, but I'm officially having a wonderful time deepening Meredith's relationship with both Clyde and Sarah –and, ultimately, with herself.  
> If some of you, for whatever odd reason, try to keep track of how much time has passed since Meredith's moving in West Virginia, she must have moved in in the first days of August... Which means her contract ends in the first week of February the next year.  
> At the end of this chapter, it is the first week of November.
> 
> Have a nice day, and, as always, feedback is welcomed!


	7. Chapter 7

“Say it.”

Her squinted eyes and serious gaze seemed to be the icing on the cake, for Erwin put a hand in front of his lips in a try not to burst out laughing.

“You look ridiculous.” He shook his head.

“Thank you.” Meredith rolled her eyes.

The day was November the 10th, and she was supposed to meet with Clyde in the early afternoon for a brunch of sorts in a place he knew near Seth. Now, she was having a hard time figuring out how she was supposed to act at this “date” considering they had already spent so much time together before. What were two friends doing during a _date_? How was it supposed to be different from their previous outings?

Hence the ‘best friend Skype call’.

“I mean, why did you even pack this thing?” The man chuckled.

Eyebrow lifted, Meredith checked once more the dress she had reluctantly put on. A floral thing, thick enough to get her through the chill of mid autumn. She couldn’t really remember when she had gotten it, or even remember wearing it. She never wore dresses anyway. Still, for some reason, it had found its way in her suitcase when she had to move to Sarah’s, and then to West Virginia.

“I have no idea. I feel like a grandmother right now.”

Erwin snorted.

“You certainly look like one.”

Halfway through taking off the piece of fabric, she gave him the finger. Small joys.

“I don’t even know why I bother.” She muttered.

Never had she really taken the time to properly ‘dress up’ for a man she was seeing; something her friend seemed to find very amusing indeed. But still –it didn’t feel right to just come, happy-go-lucky, when her friend had seemed to want to take things seriously.

She had avoided the bar a couple of days, only to come by Thursday for pool night, as she couldn’t find any other way to fight back boredom and nervousness. Clyde had seemed happy to see her, of course, and though she could feel a trace of shyness in his demeanor, he had not shown sign of regretting his impulsive proposition.

“Come on, Meredith. The man wears band shirts. He’s seen you drunk and drooling on your backseat. You’re past worrying over what to wear.” Her friend finally offered some constructive insight.

Meredith indulged in a few more moments of thinking; but eventually sighed and grabbed a simple tunic.

She could go for comfortable.

 

It had been established that Clyde and Meredith would meet at the restaurant. The idea in itself was a bit stupid and a most probably a product of their want to avoid an awkward ride together to Seth. Instead, they got to enjoy individual awkward rides in their own cars as each of them made their way to the restaurant.

The excuse had been Clyde’s need to run some errands for the bar –as if he couldn’t have done so another day– and though le little ecologist in Meredith had argued that she could very well wait for him to be ready at the library, she hadn’t protested.

The planet burning up isn’t such a big deal, after all, is it?

(It is.)

This is how, hungrier than a starved dragon –the nerves had ruined her appetite in the morning–, Meredith arrived at the place Clyde had indicated her; five minutes early. It was, admittedly, a nice place. Situated in the outskirts of Seth, few people seemed to drive by. It had a nice little terrace with a couple of tables and flowers. Meredith was surprised to see that a few tables outside were occupied. The sky was slowly getting greyer and colder everyday, but some rays of sun passed through the clouds in this early afternoon. People held onto these last sunny days before winter, she figured, no matter the chill.

Anyway, it sure felt peaceful, and Meredith could only condone her friend’s – _date’s_ – choice. She wondered when he had discovered this place. Had it opened recently, or did he know it from his school days? Did he go there with friends, with family? Had he picked it up from a patron bragging about his latest date, or had his brother –or sister– advised him?

Clyde was early, too. She almost didn’t recognize him at first; he was facing backwards, his fingers nervously tapping the wood of the table. She had never seen him wearing long sleeves before.

Well. There are firsts for everything, as they say.

When Clyde looked up to her as she pulled the chair in front of him, for an instant, she could have sworn there was a hint of fear in his eyes; the kind that comes when someone startles you and pulls you from your thoughts, she guessed. Oops. Her bad.

“Here I was, trying to be early to impress you, but you came earlier. I feel cheated.” She joked as a greeting.

This brought a small smile on his face. Not a smile on the lips, though. A smile in the eyes. Lips were too nervous to smile. She could understand. Hers hadn’t moved either.

“Impressed so far?” he deadpanned, and that made her crack a little.

“Immensely.”

Now it was his turn to avert his eyes, amused and flushed.

“Good.”

 

Fortunately, and not so surprisingly considering their already growing friendship, the date went as well as it could. Food was good. Conversation was good. Company was… _okay_ , as one of them would joke at some point –she didn’t care to remember whom. It was pretty far from the “perfect date” her six-year-old self would have imagined, with lots of flowers and candlelight and champagne, kisses in the rain; but, well, she wasn’t six anymore. Time had taught her better.

She was twenty-eight, she was past wanting to live in a Disney filter.

On the contrary, she was now very glad to be in the company of a good man who was most fundamentally her friend before being a potential lover. This, she was discovering as it unfolded. It seemed like an eternity had past since the last time she had actually dated anyone –and not just played seduction for the night.

Somehow, it was nicer than she remembered.

But then again, Clyde in himself was nicer than most.

Throughout the meal, they exchanged jokes and memories like they had done before; but this time, it felt somehow more precious, more heart-to-heart. Meredith had never known Clyde to have such a pretty laugh. She got to hear it more than once, to her greatest pleasure. She had never considered herself a very funny person, nor had she ever been one to really let go regarding her emotions. She had always been content being her old jaded self, because when you don’t show how much you care, in the end, you can still pretend you never cared at all. That was a game she knew.

Now, with Clyde, or maybe because of deeper truths that were slowly surfacing, Meredith was tired of playing it. She laughed when she felt like it, smiled at him more liberally than she used to, and found pleasure in doing so.

In the same manner, she could see brilliance in his gaze, genuine amusement and tenderness in his deep brown orbs.

 

At some point towards the end of their date, something did catch her attention. Something seemed to bother Clyde. It wasn’t anyone in particular –the waitress taking care of them was anything but nice, smiling at them knowingly, and the old lady at the nearest table was sending them those looks old people saved for blooming romance.

No, it was another kind of bothered.

“Is something wrong?” she finally asked, as she could see his hand twitch.

The tall man almost jumped at her inquiry. Chuckling with obvious unease, he tried to make it look like a shrug. Forced smiles didn’t suit Clyde Logan, she couldn’t help but notice.

“Nothin’.”

Meredith lifted an eyebrow, unconvinced. It wasn’t like Clyde to lie, but it was definitely like him to try to hide if something was not okay.

“Clyde.”

Puffing like a child and obviously embarrassed, her friend set his fork down. His big hand came to rub his left forearm, where she could guess the swell of the prosthetic under the green fabric.

“Mellie told me it was a bad idea.”

The analyst felt her stomach drop as she heard the words. Later, she would blame her treacherous brain –she would never admit to it being her heart– for having instinctively misunderstood his meaning. Before she could reason, this part deep inside her reacted –this part everyone has, the one that needs reassurance and approval the most.

Now, she hadn’t met his sister yet. All sisters loved their brothers very much. She could understand that Mellie would be wary of the person she entrusted with her brother’s heart.

Before she could get carried away, Meredith took a discrete but deep breath and let her not-insecurities and quick imagination rest.

“What was?” she breathed evenly.

Clyde looked up at her sheepishly.

“The sleeves. They’re pressing against the prosthetic’s fastening.” He mumbled the last words.

It was not shame she heard. No, he had made peace with this part of him long ago, and she could feel it. It wasn’t embarrassment either. At least, not of this self-depreciating kind. It was shyness. The fear of imposing on her, of making things less perfect for her by taking time to fix whatever troubled him.

“Why did you put them in the first place, then?” she frowned.

In retrospect, it felt stupid. Overthought. She would laugh. Mellie was right, he had been ridiculous. His friend and date wouldn’t have cared either way. He just hoped she wouldn’t laugh. Not that he didn’t like her laugh. He simply didn’t know if he could take it being directed at him.

“I didn’t want you to be uncomfortable.”

“Uncomfortable?”

Clyde shrugged, breathing to stay alive and calm the drumming of his heart in his ears.

“It’s stupid, I know.”

If he had dared to look at her in the eyes, surely Clyde Logan would have seen a flicker of comprehension light her eyes, and he would have been better prepared for what would come.

But as things were at this moment, Clyde didn’t look up. What was bubbling in his head, at the back of his mind, wasn’t the same shame and insecurity as it would have been a couple of years earlier. Now, only remained a slight disappointment in himself, the thought that maybe he could have thought better.

And so, when a warm hand come to rest on his flesh one, her forearm resting upon his plastic appendage, he started once more; and couldn’t help but meet her gaze. To his surprise, and comfort, he found no trace of amusement on her features.

“It’s not stupid, Clyde. It’s… Thoughtful of you. But you do know that your hand doesn’t bother me, right? It hasn’t made me uncomfortable before, it’s not going to start now. All I want is for you to be comfortable, all right?”

She gave his hand a slight squeeze, then tentatively released it. She hadn’t laughed. If he didn’t know her better, Clyde would even tend to think that she even looked slightly vexed. For that, he would apologize the next day, his head resting on his phone, calm breathing at the other end of the line, as he would reflect on how the day had went.

He didn’t really know how to answer to her, and so, he just nodded, and came to grab her left hand with his right. It was soothing, somehow. It felt real. She hadn’t laughed.

Slowly, as they took in the other’s solemn expression and reveled in the feeling of skin and _presence_ , the disappointment at the back of his mind quelled.

When Meredith broke eye contact and grabbed her fork again to resume her eating, putting behind them the exchange that had just happened, she couldn’t help but chuckle as the current situation sank in.

“Clyde, you have to let go of my hand if you want to eat at some point.”

Never had she seen Clyde scowl as sullenly as he did at his blasted hand.

“But I want to hold your hand.” He pouted.

Amused, Meredith shook his good hand off hers. Instead, she handled her cutlery with her left hand –rather clumsily, might he add– and with the right, she came to gently grab his left, plastic one.

When Clyde understood that she intended to keep in her grasp way for the rest of their meal, another form of warmth grew in his core. Not one he could feel from her; as great as his new prosthetic was, it wasn’t _this_ sensitive. No, the warmth he felt was one in the inside, and much more precious.

 

By the time they left the restaurant, the sun had kept its course across the sky, and the afternoon was slowly declining towards the evening. This day like most others, Clyde had to open the bar; if anything a bit earlier to restock the few things he had obtained earlier in the day.

He would have liked to ask his date to come with him, keep him company during the quiet hours of late afternoon. She would have accepted, most probably. They would have kept whispering to themselves not to bother the few quiet patrons who came to meditate over a beer or a whiskey. Perhaps secrets would have been exchanged. Perhaps they wouldn’t have. There is no way to know.

Instead, Clyde asked if she would come by his home the next day. She would. They both knew it. She couldn’t stand her rented house anymore.

And so, when they parted, in front of her car, he pulled her to him for a quiet embrace, and in response, she kissed him at the very corner of his lips, a sweet promise for him to hold onto until the next day.

When Meredith started the engine, when she drove out of her parking spot, when she watched his tall stature become smaller and smaller in the rear-view mirror; she felt a sigh escape her lips and her shoulders relax painfully. The exhaustion of caring washed over her, and her fingers tensed around the steering wheel.

Exhaustion, as well as something else. Something more deeply buried, that she could feel just beneath her skin, something that burned inside like a first shot of alcohol. Something you can’t quite swallow but you’re too scared to spit out. This is exactly how she felt as she took the first bend towards Garrison.

Sarah hadn’t called back ever since their… verbal bout. She hadn’t answered her calls either. With every meter that separated her from Clyde, she could feel the happy giddiness she had when with him quell and the anxiety of her oldest friend’s silence take over again.

She had rarely been on good terms with Sarah, and these kinds of fights had always happened, but the hurt she had seen on the agent’s features had her worried of ever being able to make amends.

The thought of heading to the Duck Tape later this night didn’t brush her mind. Instead, Garrison’s Trader Joe’s opened its door to her; and when she came out of it, it was with a beer pack, a frozen pizza and some aspirin.

Later, as Meredith would be sat on the ground in front of her oven, the sickeningly sweet smell of the heating pizza all over her and the sour taste of the beer on his tongue, she would wonder how days were sometimes fractioned into such contrary emotions. The wonder would fade into a drunken blabbering of thoughts and equations as the evening would go on; until finally, the world would be reduced to a drunken woman and a quiet phone.

 

“Hi, Sarah, it’s Meredith… again. I just wanted to apologize one more time. I -I think… I mean, I regret what I said, of course, and… it hurts a bit to admit it. You know it isn’t really my thing, coming to terms with things… but you’re right. About me, I mean. I’m scared shitless.”

A sad chuckle shook her.

“Of things going… like… _too_ well. For a time, I thought I just liked the chase, like Erwin. The exaltation of the first weeks. The excitement. The novelty.”

Beginnings were always so thrilling. But they were just that; beginnings. With time things would get tiring, and the fear of becoming bored always haunting.

“The truth is, I always think back to my mother… And I tell myself, if I’m bound to end up like this, cheating on a man I do not love anymore… I might as well do it now. It’s quick, it’s easy, and it’s pleasurable; game over, restart. Insert a new coin; start over. If love is bound to end, why would I bother with it?”

Exhaustion fell on Meredith as if these words had fought their way out of her heart. She felt like an injured warrior, blood pouring out of her wounds, as she sat on the floor of her kitchen, quietly nursing her beer. For a long time, she didn’t speak, nor did she hang up. A part of her was certainly hoping that the agent was on the other end of the line, simply pretending not to hear her messages.

“You’ve always been a better friend than I ever deserved. You’ve always been better at everything, really. Except maybe maths. You can’t take that away from me. All the rest if you want, but not that.”

The drunken woman took another swig.

“Not that it would make a big difference.” Meredith chuckled with irony. “You’re in fucking FBI. I’m not even taking over my father’s business; I’d feel like a fraud if I did, really.”

Meredith closed her eyes, and rested her head against a drawer. The wood was warm, just next to the oven. The pizza was undoubtedly overcooked now, even though she had turned off the gas. Oh, well. She didn’t feel like eating anyway.

She smiled.

“Life has become strange lately. I mean, I’m in fucking West Virginia, for God’s sake. It feels like I was in a perfectly fine train, heading towards a perfectly fine place; and that all of a sudden it derailed. But the weirdest is that… I’m still enjoying the ride. Maybe even more than before. It’s just… I don’t know.”

The glass bottle gave up its last drops of bitterness, before the analyst limply threw it away. It fell with a clank on the wooden flooring, a foot and a half from her.

“Call me back. Please. I have news about Clyde –I mean, about the target. I’ll tell you all I can. Just –just call me back. Sister. I guess.”

With that, she hung up, and let out a heavy sigh. Never before had she felt so alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Today's chapter is a bit shorter than the others, but it is two big steps Meredith has to take in her relationships both with Clyde and Sarah.  
> I hope you're all well and have a good day!  
> As always, feedback is welcome.


	8. Chapter 8

“You never told me you were born in Pittsburgh.”

Meredith rolled her eyes as she got out of her car. Clyde was waiting for her, sat at a garden table in front of his trailer. His cheeks were adorned by a slight smirk, and his whole demeanour exuded cheekiness.

“Must have slipped my mind.” She shrugged as she leant down to place a kiss on his lips.

The tall man took advantage of her bent down position to pull her on his lap, making her squeal slightly, her hands coming to grab his shoulders.

“Clyde! It’s cold out here!” She feebly protested, her own amused expression discrediting her grumpy tone.

In response, Clyde only pulled her closer to him, throwing the passport on the table to catch her with both of his arms.

“Mh, I’m not letting you go until you tell me all about Pittsburgh.” He teased, his lips coming to kiss lightly her neck.

Pretending to give up, Meredith laid down her head on his shoulder, making herself comfortable snuggled against him. She may protest all she wanted, she was secretly very glad to be exactly where she was. A few weeks had passed since their first date, and little by little, they had grown more comfortable physically. To say she had immediately taken to hugging and kissing him with no awkward feeling would be lying. It had taken time for her to stop feeling like an impostor every time his lips graced hers. Thus, her favourite moments of intimacy were the quiet nights at the bar when they would hold hands and talk quietly to pass time. It was simple yet honest; nothing but a tender reminder of the other’s presence.

Even now, in his arms, she still felt the tension of lies at the back of her tongue. As always, she pushed it down her throat, forcing it back with a chuckle. If she didn’t think about it, the net of lies on which her relationship with Clyde was based could almost feel like honest ground.

“Well, it all started in the eighteenth century as the _Fort Duquesne_ …” She teased back, earning a flick at the back of her head in response.

Amused, Clyde kissed her temple, and whispered in her hair.

“I want you to tell me all about _you_.”

For a second, a slight wave of panic made Meredith’s heart beat strongly in her chest, but as the months rolled by, she was getting used to it. And so, after a deep inspiration, and with her fingers tracing patterns on his arm, she spoke.

First, she told him about her family, living in a pretty well-to-do residential suburb in Pittsburgh, her parents always hovering over her, being their only child. Then, she told him about Sarah, her annoying good-at-everything neighbour; who, still, had been there with her through thick and thin at every moment of her life.

(She left out the part when Sarah joined the FBI. Of course.)

She told him about Erwin, her desperately single best friend, who always gave the worst yet the best of advices; about them moving to New York as a group to share college life costs. About her finding a job and staying; Erwin failing and moving back to Pittsburgh, leaving her alone with her old neighbour in a big, feverish city.

It felt funny because, no one had ever really asked her such a general question with the genuine desire to hear her rambling. Yet Clyde was listening intently, sometimes inquiring after some name she mentioned or memory she hadn’t realized she had kept from her childhood.

Overall, it was a pretty pleasant experience, despite the slight cold she could feel herself contracting.

“And this is how, every year, we celebrate my mom and Charles’ anniversary on the second weekend of September. Now, you know everything there is to know about my life in Pittsburgh. Happy?”

Her friend –she still struggled with calling him her boyfriend– hummed contentedly in her hair, and slowly extended his arm to grab her passport on the table, and finally returned it to her.

Meredith immediately put it back where it belonged in one of her coat pocket, and stood up slowly, her articulations protesting after having been sitting on Clyde’s comfortable thighs for such a long time.

She could get used to it.

 

Now, to understand how Clyde ever came in possession of Meredith’s passport, one would have to know two things. First, that she was, hands down, one of the most disorganized persons the Logan had ever met. And second, that she now spent most of her free time with Clyde, whether it be at the bar when he was working or at his trailer when he had time off. There hadn’t been any talk of moving in together –they hadn’t been a couple for more than a month, for God’s sake.

Still, by some sort of implicit agreement, and mostly because of the analyst’s unconscious spreading of her belongings, Meredith’s things were dispersed between her own place and the bartender’s trailer. Whenever she went there, she tried to gather all the little things she had lost in Clyde’s place, to bring them back to her rented house. It was embarrassing. The last thing she wanted was to be this kind of person who imposed on others, before they even had ‘the talk’ about living together.

However, it was like trying to transport water in a colander; new things kept turning up in his place nonetheless; like she never really wanted to leave.

“Hi, Clyde…” Meredith sighed the next day as she put her phone in a precarious balance between her head and her shoulder. “You wouldn’t happen to have found my Vader figurine? I swear I left it in my car, but I can’t find it anywhere.”

On the other end of the line, Clyde smiled, all the while fiddling with the missing toy.

“I don’t know, honey, I’m sure it’s going to turn up somewhere.”

 

A secret about Clyde: he loved to find the various clothes and trinkets Meredith couldn’t help but leave at his home. It stood out in his otherwise clean and tidy and lonely trailer. He had never known until dating his friend that he needed this bit of disorganization in his life. It just made everything more lively. Every other thing she left him reminded him that he had found a funny, pretty woman to share his time with; but more importantly, a woman who _liked_ _him_.

Clyde knew it embarrassed her to have to call him every other day for a missing belonging; but in all honesty, he thought it was rather endearing. He had lived alone –or worse, with Jimmy– for the best part of his adult life, surrounded by nothing but his own stuff and the occasional forgotten sock Jimmy left here when he moved. He was by no mean a chaotic person; and even though he was a man of routine, seeing his trailer always look the same had become a bit depressing. Not to get it wrong; it still felt like him, and every person who would visit his trailer would immediately feel surrounded by _Clyde_ -ness. The problem was that it almost felt too much like him; the empty shelves where Jimmy’s stuff used to be during their time sharing the home a constant reminder that there was no one in his life.

Now, they were filled with various clothes she had left in case she spent the night –which didn’t happen too often–, little things she had gotten him –“we were talking about this the other day, so it made me think of you…”–, and her infamously forgotten things. The discrete presence of her things among his screamed of her; everywhere he looked.

It almost looked like they were living together. Clyde could only imagine how Jimmy would tease him if he visited right now.

And imagine he did; with a smile on his lips.

 

As it were, Clyde’s imagination didn’t take him too far from reality. He was positively sure his girlfriend had already met Jimmy at least once; but he wasn’t so sure about Mellie. Truth was, she didn’t come so often to the bar. His younger sister wasn’t much of a drinker, and thus, could only have two motives in coming to a bar: have drinks with friends, and date. For the first as well as the second, Mellie tended to avoid the Duck Tape, for the simple reason that having her big brother hovering over her when she was acting stupid with friends –or worse, having a date with a man– was not her ideal of fun.

Clyde wasn’t mad at her for that. She still regularly came to visit at his trailer on Sundays, for breakfast and coffee –sometimes taking his tired, grumpy ass to some fancy café in Seth or Garrison–, and there was always his monthly trim when he would go to the salon.

To say the truth, Clyde and Mellie Logan hadn’t been the closest siblings, growing up. Mellie had always enjoyed girly stuff; and if he had indulged in many of her make up parties and imaginary meal with her toy sets, making him child-Mellie’s favorite brother, teen-Mellie only had eyes for her eldest brother. Jimmy was cool, and all of her friends were crushing on him –making her the hot popular guy’s sister–, whereas Clyde played Dungeon and Dragons with his nerd friends. Sure, he _had_ played one year on the football team; but always as the “second Logan”.

Now, grown-up Clyde looked back on these times with a smile, but he knew for a fact that Mellie would always be embarrassed about her time cheerleading for Jimmy. It was, in fact, part of what had motivated her to take such a good care of Clyde when he had come back injured from Iraq, and why she now insisted on checking up on him so often.

Now, Mellie may be a bit self-absorbed at time, but one thing was sure, she did care about her brother. And that means she had, of course, noticed the unusually constant good humor that had followed him for a couple of months now. The first few weeks, she hadn’t commented on it, thinking her brother had probably just spent some good time with Earl and some of his friends, and had left it at that. Then, she had –rightfully so– guessed there was a girl involved, but Clyde being a very private person, she had taken to investigating discretely by asking Jimmy. He in turn had assured her that they were only friends, and that the girl in question didn’t look particularly interested –she _had_ spent most of the evening playing pool, when they met.

But that was without counting on that photo she found after nicking Clyde’s phone on the way to Charleston the past weekend –the old thing didn’t even have a password. Mellie had never thought Clyde to be a selfie kind of person, him being rather on the selfless side; but among pictures of various drink presentations he had been working on, and next to a pretty full moon he had witnessed another night, was a picture of him smiling, a young woman leaning on his shoulder. She had a familiar face, one Mellie had probably seen without noticing a couple of times in Sylvester.

She had kind of expected Clyde to lie or say she was _just a friend_ ; but as it turns out, he had just blushed a big deal, and immediately pleaded guilty. A part of him had been kind of impatient to let her know that he did, finally, have a special someone to keep him company.

Of course, like any noisy sister, Mellie had insisted that he had to introduce them to the other soon, and Clyde begrudgingly accepted, before proceeding to tell her all about Meredith. It was all new, and exciting, and to be honest, he had secretly been dying to tell someone.

 

Surprisingly, the infamous “treat them well, or I’ll kill you” talk that every relationship goes through was not directed at the Logan –who would have told him that anyway? – but at Meredith; and was in not even given to her by Mellie, or Jimmy, or anyone she would have expected to threaten her.

It didn’t happen at his home, when she got to meet Mellie, or at their favorite snack place, when Jimmy came for lunch a couple of days after that.

It happened on a Thursday night, just after pool night, in front of the Duck Tape.

“Hey, Pryce.” She heard as she exited Duck Tape, a little satisfied jolt in her steps as she had won the second place in their little weekly pool tournament.

There was also the quick kiss Clyde had given her to wish bid her good night, that made her feel all fuzzy inside. Decidedly, victory, love and sugar excess –she should really stop drinking soda before sleeping– made a curious, explosive cocktail.

Unsurprisingly, she turned to find Earl sitting in what was basically _his_ seat in front of the bar. Whether it was sunny or rainy, you could always find Earl there at some point in the late evening. He was a bit taciturn, but Meredith had never seen him refuse a pool game once invited, nor had she ever seen him be anything but quietly nice with people.

“Hi, Earl. Nice evening, isn’t it?”

He nodded, and lit another one of his cigarettes. Meredith didn’t bother telling him he should quit smoking. She didn’t ask for one either. It had been a long time since she had last smoked.

“Yeah.”

There was a moment of silence, and the woman tightened her coat against her shoulders. The evening was cold, and she would gladly join the relative heat of her car, but she knew Earl and he wasn’t the kind of guy who just calls out someone to tell them about the weather.

“D’you wanna sit?” he indicated the spot next to him on another chair.

After a second of hesitation, she silently joined him. The night was quiet, though from their spot they could still hear some faint music from the inside of the bar. There were no stars in sight, thick clouds covering the sky.

It felt like an eternity before Earl spoke again.

“He’s a bit like a lil’ brother to us all, you know.”

Earl turned to look at her, his eyes dead serious.

“After how life an’ people treated him, I don’t know no one more deservin’ of happiness that he is.”

She forced herself to hold his gaze, though she could feel panic slowly forming a ball in her throat. She had never heard him say as many words before.

“Take a good care of Clyde.” He concluded, his voice a bit less rough –but definitely not ‘softer’, as he crashed what remained of his cigarette on the ashtray and got up.

Long after he left her, Meredith was still sat on the chair. The cold didn’t make her shiver anymore, her mind too preoccupied trying to get her heart to stop beating so ridiculously fast.

Earl’s words rang between her ears for a long time.

In them, she had heard ‘Don’t leave him.’

 

“So… I’ve checked the Veterans associations to get an idea of the price of the arm. It’s quite heavy, but chances are he obtained it as a gift from a support foundation. I can’t know for sure without asking, but it’s, you know, a bit personal. I don’t think Clyde would like me to ask, like, at all. All I know is that he got it shortly after his stay in prison last year –maybe his siblings bought it for him? To be investigated later.”

Meredith stuck her phone between her head and her shoulder, as she took notes on a blue-tinted paper she had found in a store at Charleston. It had been almost a month since the last time she had heard from Sarah, and had she not known better, she might have been worried for the special agent. The first week, she had called almost daily, but after that, it seemed she had spent so much time with Clyde she had hardly even thought to call. Guilt still gnawed at her all right, and so Meredith had decided to put in a little extra work and commit to her task more seriously.

After all, she knew Clyde well enough now to know for certain that he would have never done such a thing as getting involved in a heist. Like Erwin had said to her a few months before, it was all only about indulging in Sarah’s antics until she gave up.

“It won’t be so easy to find any relevant information about Jimmy, the older brother. He moved to Sweets shortly after the heist, to follow his ex-wife and kid. I mean, Clyde probably would answer if I asked about Jimmy, but I’d rather not make him uncomfortable. He definitely wouldn’t like me showing interest about his brother like that.”

The analyst chewed on her pencil, brows furrowed in concentration. She had made a research about the price of trailers in Sylvester; which was both simple and incredibly difficult to do discreetly, seeing as the average number of inhabitants for the past ten years in this town was of barely two hundreds. Anyway; Clyde’s trailer had been the Logan’s for a while now. Nothing too interesting to tell to the agent.

“So, well, end of the report. I hope everything’s going fine with you. I’m still sorry. I hope you don’t hate me too much. I’ll send you the written data I have later, I gotta go soon.”

As if on cue, a knock from the door was heard, and a small smile crept on her face, though she was still upset from the silent treatment Sarah was giving her. Funny how it took her to be ignored by her former housemate to realize how much she had been taking too many things for granted. To be honest, Meredith hadn’t found an unsuspected love for the agent over the course of a week; but sometimes, she figured, you have to admit you’ve been in the wrong. Sarah probably knew her better than she knew herself; yet Meredith couldn’t recall the last time she had genuinely been concerned for her. And if facing her issues was still a sore subject, she had realized she didn’t want her childhood neighbour to disappear from her life.

The same way she didn’t want Clyde to disappear either, for the time being. She knew there would probably be a time when she would screw things up, but right now, she felt as if she was making progress; with the investigation, but also with herself.

“I’m coming!” she hung up the call and made her way to the door; only to have her cell phone ringing immediately.

The hand already on the door’s handle, Meredith opened it, casting a quick glance at the caller ID. Her hand froze, the gap in the door letting her see nothing more than a half of an apparently curious Clyde Logan.

Sarah Grayson.

It took the analyst a second to make him come in, a shy smile plastered on her lips.

“I’m sorry, Clyde, come in, I just have to take this call for a second, it won’t be long.”

The man nodded, an understanding look in his eyes, though she could sense a bit of disappointment in his posture.

Walking a few steps away from him, Meredith picked the phone up.

For a second, no one spoke a word, and the woman almost believed the line would be cut from one second to the other.

“Hi, Meredith.” The faint voice spoke. “I heard your reports. And… the rest. I too should apologize. I am afraid my words outrun my thoughts. I mean –maybe one day, you _will_ lose everyone you care for because you’re such a pain in the arse. Because honestly, you are. But this day, I’ll be there. And I’ll answer your calls. And let you sleep on my couch. Sister. I guess.” She half-seriously mimicked, though one attentive listener could sense the emotion in her voice.

This semi-serious tone elicited a bewildered chuckle from Meredith, and when she caught Clyde’ gaze, there was a softness in his eyes as he watched her be in such a state.

“Have a nice day, Meredith.”

And without waiting for an answer, just like usual, special agent Sarah Grayson hung up.

When the analyst put her cell phone aside, an uncontrollable grin lifting the corner of her lips, she crossed the room to take Clyde in her arms. Surprised, the man embraced her, his prosthetic hand resting against the small of her back. A low chuckle escaped him, as Meredith squeezed him further against her, as if cuddling a very big comfort blanket.

“To what do I owe such a warm welcome?” the bartender commented, amused.

Without bothering to answer, the woman stood on her tiptoes and softly set her lips down to his. If a bit surprised, the man didn’t waste a second to answer, repressing a moan as his good hand came to find the back of her neck and the short hair there; gently pulling it as the woman nipped at his lower lip, encouraging him to deepen the kiss.

When they finally parted, Clyde let out a stunned laugh, his cheeks and ears pink.

“I -I’m not complaining.” Was the first thing he managed to say, earning a giddy laugh from his younger lady friend.

“Good news, that’s all.” Meredith simply said, as she embraced Clyde still.

Red suited him, she decided, as she leaned forward to his face again, her lips finding back the corner of his.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Am I... posting early ? What happened ? Who am I becoming ?
> 
> Hope y'all like this chapter, and as always, don't hesitate to leave feedback!


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